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<p>This article examines the characteristics and significance of supplementary geography materials for children in Republican China, a period marked by rapid educational reform and the rise of commercial publishing. Focusing on two representative travel-themed extracurricular texts<i>, Zhen’er’s Travel Notes</i> (1925) and <i>Little Travel Notes</i> (1932), the study examines how first-person, child-centered narratives shaped new pedagogical practices and helped model ideal citizens. Drawing on the concept of “vertical travel,” the study argues that these works transcend simple geographic description by integrating historical narration, cultural meaning, and emotional resonance. While direct evidence of children’s readership is lacking, the analysis suggests that such texts aimed to stimulate imagination and affective engagement, and to foster spatial awareness, patriotic consciousness, and a sense of individual agency. By interweaving episodic travel stories with depictions of everyday life, industrial development, and encounters with ethnic and national boundaries, they spatialize the child’s travel experience and present young readers with a multidimensional vision of China’s geographic and historical landscape. The study concludes that these supplementary materials arguably played a critical role in shaping the knowledge structures and value systems of future citizens, reflecting broader currents of educational modernization, nation-building, and the global diffusion of print culture in early twentieth-century China.</p>

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Children on the Move: Supplementary Learning Materials for School Children in Republican China (1925–1932)

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月11日

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  • Fanghao Chen

摘要

This article examines the characteristics and significance of supplementary geography materials for children in Republican China, a period marked by rapid educational reform and the rise of commercial publishing. Focusing on two representative travel-themed extracurricular texts, Zhen’er’s Travel Notes (1925) and Little Travel Notes (1932), the study examines how first-person, child-centered narratives shaped new pedagogical practices and helped model ideal citizens. Drawing on the concept of “vertical travel,” the study argues that these works transcend simple geographic description by integrating historical narration, cultural meaning, and emotional resonance. While direct evidence of children’s readership is lacking, the analysis suggests that such texts aimed to stimulate imagination and affective engagement, and to foster spatial awareness, patriotic consciousness, and a sense of individual agency. By interweaving episodic travel stories with depictions of everyday life, industrial development, and encounters with ethnic and national boundaries, they spatialize the child’s travel experience and present young readers with a multidimensional vision of China’s geographic and historical landscape. The study concludes that these supplementary materials arguably played a critical role in shaping the knowledge structures and value systems of future citizens, reflecting broader currents of educational modernization, nation-building, and the global diffusion of print culture in early twentieth-century China.