suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> >
> > Utter speculation and probable balderdash.
>
> To think that I once would have been upset by a comment ike that. :)
> However, I have found the quote that I was actually looking for and
> wasn't able to come up with earlier since the index of this book
> does not mention such things as education and literacy...
>
> "By 1270, he had founded a convenient vehicle for such an
> organization, the she. Tηis new state-sonsored rural organization,
> composed of about fifty households under the directionoof a village
> leader known as the she-chang, had as its principal purpose the
> stimulation of agricultural production and promoton of reclamationâ*|.
>
> Each she had the task of setting up schools for the village boys.
> The schools were planned to introduce the peasant children to better
> and more efficient means of farming as well as to provide them with
> the rudiments of literacy. Although this vision of an educational
> system, lying outside the confines of the traditional civil service
> examinations, was not fulfilled, it reveals that the concept of a
> literate peasantry whose interests the government would protect was
> embraced by Khubilai and his advisers. No longer would the
> government concern itself exclusively with the nomads." P.121
>
> Morris Rossabi. Khubilai Khan. 1988.
>
> That is what I read - I am not going to defend it. There are obvious
> difficulties in getting the straight story about the life and times
> of Khubiali khan.

Are there footnotes to contemporary sources?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...