Describing the subject of female education in China from 1898 to 1920 as a neglected topic, Paul J. Bailey offers the reader a window into the complex phenomenon of girls' schooling in those decades of fast-paced educational reforms (primary female education was officially sanctioned in 1907, secondary education in 1912, and higher education in 1919–20) and increasing public visibility for women. Bailey is known for his work on educational reform in early twentieth-century China, and his latest volume is filled with useful and fascinating details on the schools—from statistics on school and student numbers in different provinces and periods, to discussions of the various spaces appropriated as school sites, to the students, their attire, allegedly bad behavior, and sense of social justice, and even to nonstudents, including prostitutes and women workers.
This wealth of material is more often recorded than interpreted, however. The book is arranged chronologically, a structure that...
