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Chinese Elementary
Education System
Reform in Rural,
Pastoral, Ethnic,
and Private Schools
Six Case Studies

Higher
Education
Press
Chinese Elementary Education System Reform
in Rural, Pastoral, Ethnic, and Private Schools
Ling Li Jiafu Zheng
•

Editors

Chinese Elementary
Education System Reform
in Rural, Pastoral, Ethnic,
and Private Schools
Six Case Studies

123
Higher
Education
Press
Editors
Ling Li Jiafu Zheng
Institute of Educational Policy, Southwest University
Faculty of Education Chongqing
Southwest University China
Chongqing
China

ISBN 978-981-10-4560-8 ISBN 978-981-10-4561-5 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4561-5

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Preface

This book reflects the basic spirit of three major policy documents related to the
third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC National Congress. These documents include
the “Report on the 18th National Congress,” “Resolutions on Some Key Issues
Concerning How to Comprehensively Deepen the Reform Initiative,” and “The
Office of the State Council’s Notification on the Pilot Project of Education System
Reform.” Centering on “special topics and typical cases,” this book provides an
in-depth analysis of some hotly discussed issues regarding the deepening of the
reform initiative in Chinese education. The goal is to construct an education system
that is vibrant, flexible, and sustainable enough to adapt to the socialist market
economy and the new social developments in China.
The book consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 is entitled “New Problems and
Measures Regarding the Reform of the Financial System in Compulsory
Education”. Based on the field research conducted in the BC city and the five
provinces of O, K, B, N, and R, this chapter investigates the new challenges posed
to the financial system in compulsory education by the increasing trend of urban-
ization. We provide a detailed analysis of such topical issues as the financial system
based on the principle of “provinces planning and counties leading,” the pay of
teachers, the performance and statistics of the education fund, as well as other
notable problems in the current policy.
Chapter 2, “Mechanism Study of How to Integrate Ethnic and Folk Culture into
Artistic Education,” is derived from a field research conducted in the Miao ethnic
communities. Using the SWOT method, we analyze the data collected from the
field research, exploring the advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and threats
involved in incorporating the Miao embroidery into the artistic education in primary
and middle schools. We make policy recommendations regarding this incorporation
from the macro, medium, and micro perspectives.
Chapter 3, “Issues and Policy Studies of the Mechanism Governing the Flow of
Teachers in Primary and Middle Schools,” examines the flow of teachers in the S
autonomous district in the SK pastoral area. Through field research, we summarize
the distinctive features and key drivers of the flow of teachers in the pastoral areas,
and offer suggestions on how to improve the mechanism governing this circulation.

v
vi Preface

Chapter 4 is entitled “Empirical Analysis and Model Construction of Rural

Teacher Supplement in the Western Part of China.” Referring to the “compensatory
wage differential theory” and the field research in eight counties of four provinces in
the western part of China, we construct a model for rural teacher supplement and
propose policy recommendations based on this model.
Chapter 5 is called “Constructing an Integrative Integrated Model that Unifies
Urban and Rural Compulsory Education—A Case Study of the YZ County.”
Through field research in the YZ county, this chapter investigates the system
problems occurred in the reform of compulsory education, such as fiscal input,
school management, allocation of teachers, talents cultivation, performance
assessment, as well as the imbalanced resource allocation between rural and urban
schools. With these problems in mind, we make policy recommendations on how to
construct an integrated model that could incorporate rural and urban education.
Chapter 6, “A Classic Case Study of Chinese Private Education System Reform
—An Evaluative Report on the Private Education Reform in ZS City,” deals with
the national pilot project of private education reform. After outlining the goal,
assessment standard, object of study, and research method regarding the reform of
private education, we present an overall survey and detailed analysis of the
implementation of the pilot project in each of the 12 countries, districts, and
development zone within the jurisdiction of the ZS city. Based on this survey and
analysis, we make suggestions on how to deepen private education reform in the ZS
city, with a view to providing useful lessons for reforms in other areas of education.
This book distinguishes by three major features. First, it seeks to integrate the
demands of the state with cutting-edge research. All the topics covered in this book
concern the reform of the education system, an issue that is of topical urgency in
state agenda and thereby has been given close attention. The perspective and
method we adopt in the book seek to integrate the most advanced research in the
field and bring to the fullest the practical and academic value of the topic. Second,
the source of our data is accurate and reliable. In addition to the official annual
statistics and related policy documents, we have also conducted field research and
tracking surveys in the SK district in S province, the A Miao ethnic autonomous
county in G province, the ZX and YZ counties in O province, the ZN city and LS
county in N province, the DL city in B province, the TY county in U province, the
RH city in R province, and the ZS city in X province. We conducted in-depth
interviews with such related personnel as education administrators, heads of
schools, teachers, parents, and students as well. The firsthand sources insure the
authenticity and reliability of the data we collected. Third, our argument is logical
and cogent, supported by verifiable evidence. In the process of working on this
book, we have organized a series of conferences and meetings to consult education
experts, administers, as well as all levels and kinds of schools concerning the
feasibility of our project, the reasonableness of our choice of research sites, the
validity of the data analysis, the verifiability of our conclusions, as well as the
operability of the policy recommendations we proposed.
Here we want to take the opportunity to express our thanks to the following
institutions and individuals whose generous support has made the book possible.
Preface vii

We are grateful to the great support from the Development Division in the Ministry
of Education, the Bureau of Education in Wenzhou, the Education Committee in
Chongqing, the Bureau of Education in the 6 provinces of He Nan, Hu Nan, Ji Lin,
Gui Zhou, Yun Nan, and Si Chuan, as well as those in the Guang Xi Zhuangzu and
Tibetan autonomous regions. Special thanks go to the Division for Social Science,
the Faculty of Education, Center for Education Policy, the Research Center on the
Planning of Urban and Rural Education, and the Research Center on Basic
Education at the Southwest University. We are also indebted to the wise guidance
from such notable scholars as Prof. Binglin Zhong, Prof. Miantao Sun, Prof.
Hongqi Chu, Prof. Zhihui Wu, Prof. Naiqing Song, Prof. Yule Jin, and Prof.
Dequan Zhu. Last but not least, we also want to extend our thanks to the masters
and doctoral students currently studying and already graduated from the Faculty of
Education at the Southwest University for their contribution to the book: Deming
Yan (Chap. 1), Xiaoming Pan (Chap. 1), Shimei Pan (Chap. 2), Mingjiang Tu
(Chap. 3), Jinzhen Lu (Chap. 4), Xuan He (Chap. 5), and Xingping Zhou (Chap. 6).
Meanwhile, our special thanks are reserved for Lei Tao, Bosen Zeng and Chen
Huang for their generous help in organizing and integrating the materials involved
in the book, and Dr. Mingjun Lu for her great help in traslation.
This book has benefited greatly from the ideas and theories of scholars and
experts in the field, who deserve no less thanks from us.

Chongqing, China Ling Li

Jiafu Zheng
Contents

1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform in

Compulsory Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Ling Li, Deming Yan, Xiaoming Pan and Jiafu Zheng
2 Incorporating Ethnic and Folk Culture into Artistic Education a
Case Study of the Embroidery of the Miao Ethnic Community . . . . 43
Ling Li, Shimei Pan and Jiafu Zheng
3 Issues and Policy Studies of the Mechanism Governing the Flow of
Teachers in Primary and Middle Schools—A Case Study of the
Pastoral Areas in the SK Autonomous Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Mingjiang Tu, Ling Li and Jiafu Zheng
4 A Model for Rural Teachers Supplement in the Western Part of
China: An Approach Based on the Compensatory Wage
Differential Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Ling Li, Jinzhen Lu and Jiafu Zheng
5 An Integrated Model that Unifies Urban and Rural Compulsory
Education—A Case Study of the YZ County . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Ling Li, Xuan He and Jiafu Zheng
6 A Classic Case Study of Chinese Private Education System Reform
—An Evaluative Report on Private Education Reform in ZS City . . . 141
Xingping Zhou, Ling Li and Jiafu Zheng
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

ix
Project Implementers

• Center for Education Policy, Faculty of Education, Southwest University

• The Innovation Study Group, Faculty of Education, Southwest University
• Research Center on the Planning of Urban and Rural Education, Southwest
University
• Research Center on Basic Education, Southwest University, A Key Base for
Research in the Humanities in Chongqing

Project Sponsors
• “Report on the Comprehensive Reform of the Education System,” the Social
Sciences and Humanities in the Ministry of Education in 2013 (Project
No. 13JBGP040)
• “A Systematic Study of the Social Support for the Construction of an Integrated
Urban and Rural Education System,” the National Social Science Fund (Project
No. 13ASH005)
• The project supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities: Education policy innovation team (Project No. SWU1509391) and
Assessment of Basic Education Quality (Project No. SWU1709104)
• The project supported by Faculty of Education, Southwest University: A
Longitudinal Study of Basic Education Quality in Ethnic Minority Areas of
Southwest China (Project No. 2017ZDPY02)
• “Policy Research on Integrating Urban and Rural Education,” the Social
Science Platform Program at the Southwestern University (Project
No. 15SWUJDPYA04)
• Study on Influential Factors of Students’ Performance funded by the Research
Program Funds of the Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward
Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal University (Project No. 2016-06-
008-BZK01) and Major Projects of National Social Science Fund of China
(Project No.16ZDA229)

xi
Chapter 1
New Problems and Strategies
in the Financial Reform in Compulsory
Education

Ling Li, Deming Yan, Xiaoming Pan and Jiafu Zheng

In 2013, the third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee passed the
“Resolutions on Some Key Issues Concerning How to Comprehensively Deepen
the Reform Initiative.” This document outlines some new tasks for the upgrading of
China’s education reform, most of which were implemented in 2014. This year
witnessed a series of achievements in the implementation of these new tasks, such
as a balanced development of compulsory education, the establishment of the
rotation mechanism between principals and teachers, the revamping of the admis-
sion procedures, the separation of administration and performance assessment, the
institution of vocational education, the introduction of legal supervision in various
sectors of education, as well as the education of the ethnic and minority groups in
the border regions.
This chapter deals with six highly contested topics concerning China’s education
reform. These include the new financial policies and strategies in compulsory
education; the mechanism regarding the incorporation of ethnic and folk culture;

This section draws on the framework used in compulsory education study proposed in Pan
Xiaoming, “Annual Education Finance Summit Seminar Held by the Education Finance
Committee of the Chinese Education Development Strategy Association (2014),” Chinese
Education Finance, 11–1(2014).

L. Li (&)
Institute of Educational Policy, Faculty of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
e-mail: 2251983158@qq.com
D. Yan
Henan Institute of Education, Zhengzhou, China
X. Pan
China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University, Beijing, China
J. Zheng
Southwest University, Chongqing, China

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. and Higher Education Press 2017 1
L. Li and J. Zheng (eds.), Chinese Elementary Education System Reform in Rural,
Pastoral, Ethnic, and Private Schools, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4561-5_1
2 L. Li et al.

the regulation of the circulation of teachers between the pastoral and agricultural
areas; the construction of a framework that could address the supplement of rural
teachers in the western regions; the building of a system to coordinate urban and
rural education; as well as the national pilot project on private education reform.
A scrutiny of these topics will allow us not only to identify the key challenges faced
by education reform but also suggest viable solutions to these challenges.
From 2000 onward, the Council of the State initiated the taxation reform in the
rural area throughout the country. The Council put in place a series of important
policy documents concerning the safeguarding of education funds, as well as the
institution of a financial system based on the principle of “overall provincial
supervision and practical implementation by the counties.” The purpose is to grad-
ually incorporate rural compulsory education into the safeguard system of public
finance. Meanwhile, the “Education Planning Prospectus” also lays out some new
missions: such as “prioritizing financial safeguard in education,” “completely putting
education under the protection of the state financial safeguard system,” as well as
“increasing financial investment in the poor rural, distant, and ethnic regions [1].” All
these policies bespeak the top priority of compulsory education in state agenda.
At present, both the central and local governments realize the importance of
education and take upon themselves to increase educational investment, on a sus-
tained, timely, and steady basis. As is shown in Table 1, the total state budget of

Table 1 2000–2011 State education budget (Unit Billion RMB, %)

Year Total education budget Education budget from Education investment
public finance within state budget
Total Increased Total Increased Total Increased
amount by (%) amount by (%) amount by (%)
(Billion, (Billion, (Billion,
RMB) RMB) RMB)
2000 3849.08 14.93 2562.61 12.04 2085.68 14.87
2001 4637.66 20.49 3057.01 19.29 2582.38 23.81
2002 5480.03 18.16 3491.40 14.21 3114.24 20.60
2003 6208.27 13.29 3850.62 10.29 3453.86 10.91
2004 7242.60 16.66 4465.86 15.98 4027.82 16.62
2005 8418.84 16.24 5161.08 15.57 4665.69 15.84
2006 9815.31 16.59 6348.36 23.00 5795.61 24.22
2007 12148.07 23.77 8280.21 30.43 7654.91 32.08
2008 14500.74 19.37 10449.63 26.20 9685.56 26.53
2009 16502.71 13.81 12231.09 17.05 11419.30 17.90
2010 19561.85 18.54 14670.07 19.94 13489.56 18.13
2011 23869.29 22.02 18586.70 26.70 16804.56 24.57
2012 27695.97 16.03 22236.23 19.64 – –
2013 30364.72 9.64 24488.22 10.13 – –
Statistic source Bureau of Finance, Minister of Education etc. Annual Education Budget Statistic:
2001–2014[Z]. Beijing: Chinese Statistic Chuban she
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 3

2011 reached ¥23869.29 billion, increased by 6.2 times than the ¥3849.08 billion in
2000. In 2011, the education budget from public finance reached ¥16804.56 billion,
increased by 8.06 times than the ¥2085.68 billion in 2000. The annual growth rate
of both the budget from public finance and the education investment within state
budget is higher than that of the total national education budget [2]. From 2005, the
growth rate of the total national education budget from public finance exceeded that
of the total national education budget. As can be seen from Table 1, the ratio of the
education budget from public finance and the education investment within state
budget started to increase annually from 2005, which means that both the central
and local governments began to augment their input to guarantee the financial
support of education.
The percentage of education budget from public finance in national GDP has
increased annually. As is shown in Table 2, in the eight years from 2004 to 2012,
the percentage of education budget from public finance in national GDP has been
on the rise, increasing from 2.79% in 2004 to 4.28% in 2012, an increase that marks
a historical high. The percentage of education budget from public finance in total
public expenditure is on the rise as well. As can be seen from Fig. 1 and Table 3,
the percentage of education budget in public financial expenditure has shown a
steady growth from 2000 to 2011, a trend that signifies both the increase g of state
input in education and the top priority education enjoys in state policy.

Table 2 Percentage of education budget in GDP: 2000–2011 (Unit Billion, RMB, %)

Year GDP Education budget from public Education budget from public
(Billion, finance (Billion, RMB) finance in GDP (Billion, RMB)
RMB)
2000 99214.6 2562.61 2.58
2001 109655.2 3057.01 2.79
2002 120332.7 3491.40 2.90
2003 135822.8 3850.62 2.84
2004 159878.3 4465.86 2.79
2005 183867.9 5161.08 2.81
2006 210871.0 6348.36 3.01
2007 257305.6 8280.21 3.22
2008 300670.0 10449.63 3.48
2009 340903.0 12231.09 3.59
2010 401513.0 14670.07 3.65
2011 472882.0 18586.70 3.93
2012 518942.1 22236.23 4.28
2013 568845.2 24488.22 4.30
Statistic source “Public announcement on the Implementation of National Education Budget from
the Chinese Ministry of Education Website, National Bureau of Statistics, and Ministry of Finance
in 2000–2012” [EB/OL]. http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_83/index.
html.2015-11-10)
4 L. Li et al.

Fig. 1 2000–2011 Percentage of education budget from state finance (Unit %). Statistic source
Bureau of Finance, Minister of Education etc., Annual Education Budget Statistics: 2001–2012.
Beijing: Chinese Statistic Chuban she

Table 3 Percentage of education investment within state budget in total national expenditure
(Unit Billion, RMB, %)
Year Public Education budget Percentage of Percentage of
finance within state budget education education budget
expenditure (Excluding investment within within state budget
(Billion, education budget in public in public finance
RMB) surcharge) finance expenditure expenditure
(Billion, RMB) (Excluding (Including education
education surcharge) (Billion,
surcharge) (Billion, RMB, %)
RMB, %)
2000 15886.50 2085.68 13.13 13.80
2001 18902.58 2582.38 13.66 14.31
2002 22053.15 3114.24 14.12 14.76
2003 24649.95 3453.86 14.01 14.68
2004 28486.89 4027.82 14.14 14.90
2005 33930.28 4665.69 13.75 14.58
2006 40422.73 5795.61 14.34 15.18
2007 49781.35 7654.91 15.38 16.26
2008 62592.66 9685.56 15.47 16.32
2009 76299.93 11419.30 14.97 15.69
2010 89874.16 13489.56 15.01 15.76
2011 109247.79 16804.56 15.38 16.31
2012 125952.97 – – 16.13
2013 140212.1 – – 15.27
Statistic source “Public announcement on the Implementation of National Education Budget from
the Chinese Ministry of Education Website, National Bureau of Statistics, and Ministry of Finance
in 2000–2013,” [EB/OL]. http://old.moe.gov.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_83/index.
html.2015-11-10)
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 5

Despite these encouraging progress and achievements, however, our research in

City BC and the five provinces of O, K, B, N, and R shows that there are still some
serious problems in the reform of the financial system in compulsory education. By
conducting on-site research, interviews, as well as statistical analysis of the
financial investment in education, we identified the following six problems.

1 Urbanization and Challenges to the Financial System

in Compulsory Education

In recent years, urbanization has posed a greater challenge to Chinese compulsory

education. A key challenge is the fragmented state of the financial policy concerning
compulsory education, a condition that renders it hard to meet the rising demand for
education in the new historical period. We suggest the state put in place, against the
broader backdrop of the merging of the city and the countryside, a uniform budget
standard based on an overall assessment of the financial demands both of the rural
and urban students. A new budget mechanism should be designed to cope with the
various new challenges raised by the irresistible trend of urbanization.

1.1 A Safeguard Financial Mechanism for Children

of Rural Migrant Workers

A fast growing economy has thrown into high relief the problem of education for
children whose parents are migrant workers from the rural areas [3]. This concerns
the education both of children migrating with their parents and those left behind at
home [4]. As this problem encompasses both the city and the countryside, it nec-
essarily involves the hukou or household registration reform and the problem of
enrollment in cities. It also concerns the education and care of those left-behind
children. The following are some grave problems regarding the education of chil-
dren of rural migrant workers—migrant children for short.
(1) Lack of an Incentive Mechanism to Regulate the Enrollment of Migrant
Children in Cities
In the process of urbanization, the conflict between the education of migrant
children and the enrollment and financial system based on the household regis-
tration policy has grown more and more marked. The increasing industrialization
and urbanization has greatly augmented the number of migrant workers flooding
into the cities, which, in turn, increased the amount of children on the move with
their parents. The compulsory education of these children naturally becomes an
issue of topical urgency for both the state and the society.
Migrant children are a key component of the urban migrant population, and their
education is part and parcel of the general social problems generated by the flooding
of peasants to cities in search of jobs. Despite the topical urgency of the compulsory
6 L. Li et al.

education of migrant children, however, so far there still lacks a coherent financial
policy to cope with this problem. This renders it imperative for policy makers at
both the state and local levels to come up with a new burden-sharing financial
system to insure that these children could get appropriate financial assistance.
The issue of migrant children is an unavoidable outcome of urbanization.
According to the 6th national population census, migrant children refer to children
under the age of 18 and whose habitual residence differs from their household
registration address [5]. These include at once children who migrate across pro-
vinces, across cities, across counties, and across small towns.
a. Policies Regarding the Financial Safeguard of Migrant Children
The current national policy regarding the compulsory education of migrant children
centers on the so-called “Two Priorities”: “the priority of the inflow governments,”
which refers to the governments that receive the migrant workers, and “the priority
of admission by public schools.” In 1998, the former Ministry of Education and the
Ministry of Public Security jointly published the “Temporary Rules for the
Enrollment of Migrant Children.” By these rules, “the inflow governments are
obligated to provide compulsory education for migrant children. These govern-
ments should abide by the ‘Two Priorities’ policy to guarantee the enrollment of
these children in public schools. Thus it is the local governments who should
shoulder the responsibility of the education of migrant children [6].” In September
2003, the General Office of the State Council forwarded the “Opinions on How to
Further Improve the Compulsory Education of Children of Rural Migrant
Workers,” which is a policy paper jointly promulgated by the Six Ministries. This
paper speaks no more of the tuition issue of migrant children; rather, it “puts
emphasis on the financial responsibility of the government, making clear the
financial obligation of the government to the education of these children, and
reinforcing the commitment of the inflow government [7].” In March 2006, the
State Council announced the “Several Suggestions on How to Solve the Problem of
Rural Migrant Workers” to reaffirm the financial obligations of the inflow gov-
ernment. These obligations include: “incorporating migrant children into both the
local education and budget system, insuring public schools as the key enrollment
avenue, as well allocating education fund in accordance with the practical number
of enrolled students.” Also, “Public primary and middle schools should treat
migrant children equally in terms of tuition and student regulation, and refrain from
collecting additional or any other extra fees because of their boarding status. In
regards to migrant children enrolled in private schools, the inflow government
should assist them in both financial matters and the supply of teachers and staff to
insure the education quality there [8].” Also, August 2008 saw the promulgation of
the “Notification on Exempting the Tuition and Fees of Urban Students in
Compulsory Education.” According to this “Notification,” “public schools should
exempt migrant students from paying tuition and other fees, boarding fees included.
The Ministry of Finance should award provinces that could effectively address the
problem of compulsory education for migrant children [9].”
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 7

To sum up, all above-mentioned official documents draw attention to four key
points. First, it is the inflow government that should shoulder the responsibility to
regulate and finance the education of migrant children. The second is the plan to
incorporate migrant children into the local education and budget system. Third,
full-time public schools should be the key receivers of these children, and the
inflow government should provide financial assistance according to the practical
number of enrolled students. And public schools should give equal treatment to
migrant students in terms of tuition and student regulation, not charging extra
boarding or other fees. Fourth, the inflow governments are obligated to support
private schools financially and assist them in the training of teachers and staff
members [10].
All these documents mention the responsibility of the central government, such as
the enhancement of payment transfer, the normalization of compulsory education, as
well as the incentive policy for provinces that could effectively implement the state
policies. But all these responsibilities are cast in vague and general terms, lacking the
necessary clarity and transparency [11]. The central government does transfer the
financial burden to the inflow governments, but without differentiating the specific
duty and responsibility of different levels of government. Moreover, the imperfect
state of the financial policy on compulsory education gives rise to the great disparity
among local governments in the treatment of migrant children. All these indicate that
the practical implementation of the official policies is still far from ideal.
b. Problems Common to the Financial Safeguard of Migrant Children
The 2001 “Resolutions of the State Council Concerning the Reform and
Development of Primary Education” introduces the policy of the “Two Priorities.”
After the evolution and development across the years, this policy has shifted from
its initial emphasis on the inflow government’s regulatory function to a full
financial commitment to the education of migrant children [12]. Though both the
central and local governments have promulgated related policies to promote the
compulsory education of migrant children in urban areas, there are still some
common problems that need to be addressed due to some defects inherent in the
current financial policy. Here are some of these problems.
First, the existing financial system concerning the compulsory education of
migrant children is out of tune with reality. The “Several Suggestions on How to
Solve the Problem of Rural Migrant Workers” announced in 2006 divides the duty
for the education of migrant children into two parts. One part refers to “the obli-
gation of the inflow government to the education of children migrating with their
parents,” and the other refers to “the obligation of the outflow government to the
education of children left behind at home [13].” This policy thus views the inflow
government as the key bearer of education for migrant children while relieving the
burden of the outflow government. For provinces that have seen greater influx of
migrant populations, it requires tremendous effort to cope with the matter if only
financially. The 2008 “Notification on Exempting the Tuition and Fees of Urban
Students in Compulsory Education” does state that the central government would
8 L. Li et al.

reward provinces that could successfully address the problem [14], but this reward
is but a drop of water in a sea waiting to be fed by a greater funding source.
Second, it is the desire of the general public that the outflow government should
also share the financial responsibility [15]. The “Two Priorities” policy requires the
local governments to adopt different strategies or tactics to guarantee the education
right of migrant children, but this policy lacks specific guidance for the imple-
mentation of these priorities. It just states that the inflow government should bear
the brunt, but leaving such issues as “its governance sphere, nature of responsi-
bility, as well as how to show the priority of public as opposed to private schools in
primary education” largely unaddressed. The lack of specific assessment policy
renders it hard for the local governments to gauge the degree and effectiveness of
their implementation.
Third, the central government should share the financial burden with adminis-
trations in the local districts and counties [16]. The revenue-sharing reform has
greatly increased the revenue of the central government, but the incomplete
implementation of this reform at the local levels has left a gap in the whole system.
The chain effect produced by the revenue-sharing reform on the financial system
would inevitably transmit from the central to the various levels of the local gov-
ernments, leading ultimately to the financial deficit of administrative units beneath
the provincial level. Thus while the financial power and resources become highly
centralized because of the revenue-sharing reform, the administrative power is
dispersed and transferred downward. The revenue-sharing system does concentrate
over half of the nation’s revenue in the central government, which does, in turn,
transfer a considerable portion of this revenue to the local governments. But the
problem is that, the revenue transfer is usually bundled together with some special
financial programs. Thus though the amount sounds great, it still cannot meet the
practical public needs, not to say the various defects intrinsic to the existing pay-
ment and transfer system. Payment transfer at the county and town levels must be
made transparent and normative. Viewed in this light, the financial problems of the
local government are not resulted from the revenue-sharing system; on the contrary,
it is caused by the inappropriate allocation of revenue.
Equal education is a basic constitutional right for all citizens, and to give the
citizens the equal right to education is the basic duty of the government. The
“Compulsory Education Act” states clearly that the government is obligated to
provide education opportunities for all children [17]. But there lacks concrete
policies concerning the specific amount and ratio of the financial obligations among
the various levels of the local governments. The education financial system put
forward by the State Council focuses mainly on the inflow government at the
county level, while overlooking both the natural disparity in local financial income
and the regional difference in the distribution of migrant children. Meanwhile, such
policies also want in an incentive and responsibility mechanism that could incite the
local governments to bear such burdens. All these defects make it hard for migrant
children to enjoy equal education opportunities in cities. Only a financial system
anchored in the central government could effectively guarantee migrant children’s
equal rights to education.
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 9

c. Policy Recommendations for Financial Safeguard for the Education of

Migrant Children [18]
The spillover effects of compulsory education for migrant children require
higher-level governmental participation. The special development stage of the
country renders it imperative to regulate the inflow governments’ financial obli-
gations to the compulsory education of migrant children.
First, it is necessary to improve the existing financial system regarding the
compulsory education of migrant children.
It is needful to clarify the responsibility of the central government, constructing a
payment transfer system that could insure the supervision of the central over the
provincial and the provincial over the various levels of local governments. It is also
imperative to reform the payment transfer system based on household registration
into one based on the practical number of enrolled students. The central government
should also construct a financial system for the funding of some special programs,
designing a burden-sharing mechanism that clearly specifies the duty and respon-
sibility of different levels of government in sharing the financial burden of com-
pulsory education for migrant children. For instance, the central government should
cover the cost of textbooks, various fees, and 50% of the public expenditure, with
the provincial governments bearing the principal burden, the municipal govern-
ments providing the basic education funds, and the district and county governments
covering the remaining public expenditure. There are two specific ways to imple-
ment these policy recommendations.
One is to increase the percentage of the central government’s input i in com-
pulsory education for migrant children, constructing an education financial system
centered on the central and provincial governments. At present, the flow of migrant
children could be classified into two categories: intra-provincial and
trans-provincial flows. In regards to the education of children who flow between the
cities within the same province, the provincial governments are duty bound to take
the main responsibility. Regarding the education of the new entrees in the middle
schools, their financial assistance should come wholly from the provincial gov-
ernment. As to those traversing across provincial boundaries, the central govern-
ment should bear the main burden due to the high fluidity and greater difficulty
involved in the payment transfer. This is the best way to get these volatile phe-
nomena under control and thereby insure the effective implementation of com-
pulsory education.
Another way is to insure the overall coordination of the provincial government
in its obligation to increase financial investment in the local governments and public
schools. There has been a shift concerning the financial system for compulsory
education from that “centered on villages and towns” to that “centered on counties,”
a shift that allows the counties to take over both the administration and financial
rights in education. So the county government should cover all the cost concerning
compulsory education except for the salary of teachers in public schools. This
usually increases the financial burden of those counties already beset with a weak
financial system, and this burden would impact their reception of migrant children.
10 L. Li et al.

Given these various problems, the provincial governments could establish a special
funding program for cross-border migrant flows based on school registration, and
the fund could come from the tax return from the central to the provincial gov-
ernment. This portion of tax should be run and supervised by some special per-
sonnel who are charged with the responsibility to allocate the funds in accordance
with the real conditions of local governments with a purpose to mitigate their
burdens. The inflow government should abide by the principle of “prioritizing the
public primary and middle schools,” requesting them to open doors to migrant
students. The local governments ought to integrate migrant children as a key
component of their development plan, adjusting the scale and structure of the
schools in accordance with the distribution of migrant children, and expanding the
old or building new schools in those highly concentrated areas to increase their
reception capacity [19].
Second, we recommend reforming the revenue-sharing system to insure the
financial supply of the inflow government.
Three general rules should be observed to clarify the financial and administrative
relationship between the central and local finance. First, we suggest following the
legal and the constitutional rules to clearly mark out the governance sphere and
public responsibility between the central and various levels of local government so
that each could follow its allotted duty and obligations. Second, we recommend
specifying the fiscal income and expenditure of different levels of governance in
accordance with their administrative duty. Third, we suggest coordinating the kinds
of taxes between the central and local government, both of which should only
collect the taxes, exercise the collection right, and improve the collection system
within their jurisdiction. Only with their own source of tax and financial resource
could the local governments exercise their power and fulfill their public obligations
independently, not as a dependent agent dispatched by the central government.
A revenue-sharing system is in essence a legal division of financial rights
between the central and local governments in accordance with taxes each is obli-
gated to collect. To legalize this system, the legislative right of local taxation should
be instituted as a constitutional or basic financial law. To establish a steady and
sustainable system that could regulate the financial resource of the local government
in tandem with the new property tax reform could guarantee the financial needs of
migrant children in urban areas.
The third policy option concerns “Education Voucher.” The concept was first
proposed by the American economist Milton Friedman in his Capitalism and
Freedom (1962) to illustrate the role of government in education. According to
Freidman, at his time the government supports education mainly through directly
financing educational institutions. In effect, the financing and the support for
education could be divided into two separate categories. The government could
prescribe the minimum education a child is entitled to and send them to related
schools. Under this condition, parents would have the freedom either to decide how
to spend this financial support or send the children to their dream schools by adding
a little more money. The key of Freidman’s educational ideal is to change the ways
of financing public schools through “Education Voucher” and thereby give children
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 11

the freedom to choose their own favorite public schools. In this sense, “Education
Voucher” serves as a medium that introduces market mechanism into education,
which allows schools to provide the better service for the public and thereby
increase the efficiency of education.
The research and interview we have conducted in various parts of the country,
especially that made in the Jiangsu province, show that “Education Voucher” is far
from an ideal system to solve the various problem in practice. Even in the United
States, this system has not been really carried out. China does not have successful
precedents, not to say the unexpected problems such a policy might incur. In China,
the government could insure students to get the financial assistance through
“Education Voucher,” and migrant students could use the Voucher for tuition
payment in the inflow government, which might partly solve its financial problems.
But finance is not the only problem faced by the inflow government, and there are
many other issues that could not be resolved by the education voucher. The suc-
cessful implementation of “Education Voucher” requires a uniform school enroll-
ment system across the country, such as the systematization of the enrollment
software and the maintenance of the system by related personnel.
To timely and accurately supervise the budget and auditing of fiscal input in
education, the central government should speed up the construction of an electronic
enrollment system based on the principle of “One student one number, enrollment
travelling with students, and lifetime guarantee.” Only in this way could the
problem caused by the fluidity and unpredictability of migrant children be resolved.
We recommend that the central government appropriately reduce its subsidy for
migrant children via payment transfer based on the number both of trans-provincial
migrant children and students in the outflow province. As to the subsidy for the
inflow provinces, we suggest a shared commitment based on the ratio of revenue
income between the central and local government.
Fourth, we recommend reinforcing financial assistance for schools that receive
migrant children.
At present, private schools play an indispensable part in the education of migrant
children. In its overall plan for compulsory education, the provincial government
should provide certain financial assistance for private schools that receive migrant
children. The local government should send applications for financial support to the
provincial government, and the applications should include such information as the
financial conditions of public schools, the overall cost of private schools, as well as
the number of migrant students they enrolled. The provincial government should
allot the funds appropriately after checking out these applications. To insure the
education quality of migrant children in private schools and improve their
administrative competence, we recommend introducing the competition mechanism
in addition to the regular term assessment. We also suggest providing private
schools with certain tax and financial incentives based on the number of enrolled
migrant children, teaching facilities, and fund surplus.
To sum up, to solve the financial problem caused by the education of migrant
children in cities require at once reforming the payment transfer mechanism cen-
tered on the household registration system, the shared obligation between the inflow
12 L. Li et al.

and outflow governments, and shared financial commitment between the central,
provincial, and various levels of local government. Only the proper implementation
of these various policies could guarantee the equal education opportunity for the
migrant population.

1.2 The Education and Care of Left-Behind Children

in the Countryside

It is incomplete urbanization that has led to the problem of left-behind children [20].
According to a report produced by a special study group of the All-China Women’s
Federation (ACWF) in 2013, the 6th national population census shows that there
are 61.0255 million left-behind children, which takes up 37.70% of the whole rural
children population and 21.88% of the national children population [21]. On 13
May 2015, the National Ministry of Health and Birth Planning held press confer-
ence and released the “2015 Report on Family Development in China.” According
to this report, left-behind children take up 35.1% of the national children popula-
tion, and nearly half of these children are without the care of both parents [22].
Urbanization has caused a tremendous outflow of farmers into cities, but some
children did not migrate with their parents. Instead, they are left behind to be
educated in the countryside. Hence comes into being the special social group—
left-behind children. There is no denying the negative effect left by the deprivation
of parental care. The lack of parental care and equal opportunity to education faced
by the left-behind children is a social problem unique to a nation in transition, and
as such it has attracted widespread attention and concern. But from the perspective
of policy evaluation, despite the various policies put in place in regards to
left-behind children, issues such as health care, personal security, education, moral
behavior, as well as psychological development continue to exist, and all these
directly impact their opportunities to education. As Fan Xianzuo and Guoqing Yang
put it, “The education of the left-behind children continue to be a problem, and the
effective resolution of this problem requires a long, complex, and systematic policy
strategy. Though the severity of the problem has been recognized by families,
schools, governments, and the society in general, the incomplete education caused
by the absence of parental care, ineffective regulation system in schools, as well as
the oversight in practical education, all these problems deserve further pondering
and exploration [23].” These problems also render it imperative to construct a
service system centered on the education and care of left-behind children.
(1) Policy Requirements for The Education and Care of Left-behind Children
The education of left-behind children has attracted widespread social attention and
concern. From the beginning of the 21st century, the central government and related
bureaus have promulgated a series of policies, rules, and measures to guarantee the
education of left-behind children. For instance, in July 2005, the Ministry of
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 13

Education published the “Several Opinions on How to Achieve a Balanced

Development of Compulsory Education.” This document sets out some special
policies regarding the education of left-behind children, stipulating that “the edu-
cation boards and schools at all levels should adopt a well-targeted method, timely
addressing problems and difficulties faced by left-behind children in thought, study,
living, as well as other related issues [24].” Also, in August 2006, the Ministry of
Public Security released the special “Notification on the Care of Left-Behind
Children and Related Issues,” requiring that “all public security agencies should be
acquainted with the practical condition of the legitimate rights and personal safety
of left-behind children caused by the lack of parental guardianship. Based on this
knowledge, they should provide them with more protection, severely punishing
infringement upon the legitimate rights of these children to substantially guarantee
their personal security [25].” The “National Prospectus on the Medium and
Long-Term Planning of Education Reform and Development (2010–2020)”
released in July 2010 further requires “establishing a left-behind children care
service system and a dynamic supervisory mechanism, accelerating the construction
of rural boarding schools that prioritize the boarding demands of left-behind chil-
dren, adopting necessary measures to insure that these children will not drop out
because of financial problems, difficulty of schooling, as well as study problems,
and exterminating the phenomenon of discontinued education [26].” A lot has been
invested into the education and care of left-behind children by various levels of
government, especially the department in charge of education in counties. All these
policies and efforts have played a pivotal role in the education and healthy growth
of left-behind children. But since the “Two Priorities” policy is not set forth within
a legal framework, there lacks firm and specific description of the responsibility or a
proper punishment mechanism. But all these policy measures seem to hint that
left-behind children should not migrate with their parents or guardians and should
stay in the boarding school in their hometown. These hints have given rise to a
discrepancy between the local government and the “Two Priorities” principle,
which apparently lacks an operational capacity.
The main barrier to the implementation of the “Two Priorities” relates to policies
on the rural boarding schools. The rural boarding school system is regarded as an
effective way to solve the left-behind children problem. But the “The State
Council’s Several Suggestions on How to Resolve the Problems faced by Rural
Migrant Workers” published in March 2006 does not link boarding schools with the
problem of left-behind children. But the opinions regarding the implementation of
these “Suggestions” published in May 2006 do make this connection. As it states:
“The government faced with a tremendous outflow of migrant workers should link
the education of left-behind children with the construction of rural boarding school
to meet the boarding demands of rural children, including left-behind children
[27].” It is because of this document that the rural boarding system has been
regarded as an ideal solution to the left-behind children problem and thereby
secured ardent support from some departments.
14 L. Li et al.

In fact, the government policy regarding rural boarding schools only concerns
how to reduce the cost; it does not adopt the international “government school bus
system.” So the problem of “distant schools” in rural areas is far from adequately
addressed. Further, if the boarding system is meant to keep migrant children in the
countryside, it will hinder the overall process of urbanization. So to relate the
boarding system to the left-behind children problem would create two intercon-
nected illusions: the “Two Priorities” policy could be disregarded and children
could refuse to migrate with their parents and guardians. Both are misleading and
harmful illusions caused by some “anti-urbanization” notions.
The “The State Council’s Notification on Deepening Rural Compulsory
Education by Reforming the Financial Safeguard Mechanism” released in
December 2005 sets out some specific prescriptions for this problem. According to
the “Notification,” “Urban compulsory education also needs to perfect its financial
safeguard mechanism. It is the duty of the local government to provide the nec-
essary support for mechanism … children of rural migrant workers receive the same
education opportunities and benefits as urban children [28].” In effect, this financial
arrangement would also effectively promote urbanization. According to the
“National Prospectus on the Medium and Long-Term Planning of Education
Reform and Development (2010–2020)” released in July 2010, it is imperative to
“build the service and dynamic supervisory system and boarding schools for the
care of left-behind children entitled to compulsory education [29].” Though the
“Prospectus” emphasizes the relationship between boarding school and left-behind
children, the anti-urbanization mentality remains there.
So there lacks an effective policy to insure the much needed family education
and care for left-behind children in primary schools, which renders it hard to
implement the “Two Priorities” policy. As a result, migrant children, rejected by
schools in the inflow cities, have to separate from their parents and live by them-
selves. If the whole family could not move together and family members remain
separated for long, the family would be beset with unpleasant problems, which
proves a hotbed for many problems latent in children’s education. Though many
years of urbanization has greatly augmented the number of residents in cities, the
ratio of families that could migrate together is decreasing.
So it is imperative to follow “Two Priorities” policy, stick to the moral bottom
line that children should live and study under the supervision of their parents or
guardians, and incorporate public education into the overall public service system to
achieve real equality between rural and urban areas. In “The Twelfth Five-Year
Plan Prospectus on Economic and Social Development in China” published in
March 2011, public education ranks first in the basic public service system, which
includes equal opportunity to compulsory education [30]. According to the
“Resolutions on Some Key Issues on How to Comprehensively Deepen the Reform
Initiative” passed by the third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee,
the state should “link the payment transfer system with the urbanization of rural
migrant workers” and “steadily promote the coverage of basic pubic service in
towns and cities [31].”
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 15

(2) Key Problems Regarding the Education and Care of Left-behind Children
Childhood proves pivotal to the development of one’s body, thought, and educa-
tion, and family, school, and society play a pivotal role in shaping this crucial stage
in life. But at present, the health and growth of left-behind children are negatively
affected by the lack of a whole family, parental guidance, defect in the rural school
system, as well as the weakening of the overall regulation in the countryside. There
are four such influences.
First, the study of left-behind children usually lags behind that of others. Farmers
working in cities usually leave their children to the care of temporary guardians or
grandparents. This accounts for the widespread phenomenon of “prizing nurture
over education.” According to our research, among the grandparents entrusted with
left-behind children, 79.96 and 84.2% are graduates of primary schools or with no
education at all, which means that they are unable to give instructions on the study
of their grandchildren. These old folks would need the assistance of these children
with heavy chores and some tough work in the fields. In some places, there even
occur the abnormal phenomenon of “anti-guardianship,” which means that, rather
than being taken care of, the left-behind children frequently turn to look after their
grandparents or other guardians. Meanwhile, left-behind children seldom take ini-
tiative in studies, and it is a frequent occurrence for them to play truant or drop out.
This accounts for why they most of these children rank below the average in class.
According to a report based on a study of 5000 left-behind children conducted by
the Jiangxi province, 68.0% of these children have study problem. Only 8.1% of
them rank at the top, and 54.4% rank below the average.
The second baneful impact refers to imbalanced psychology. Research shows that
the length of separation with their parents would lead to marked difference in the
psychological condition of left-behind children. The longer the separation is, the
lower the level of their psychological health is, and the more pronounced the various
psyche-related problems are. The absence of parental care and guidance lies behind
such problems as cognitive deviation, greater psychological pressure, as well as
incompletely developed character. These children often become introvert, unsocia-
ble, emotionally cold, with odd behavior, and devoid of love. Some tend to be timid,
self-depreciative or self-indulgent, and unusually rebellious. Research also shows
that psychological pressure increases when these children feel lonely and helpless:
37% of the left-behind children don’t want to talk, and 30% of them constantly feel
lonely. This psychological imbalance greatly impacts their socializing ability.
Third, left-behind children frequently disrupt social rules and norms. In those
formative years when both mind and body grow at a fast speed, children look at the
world with fresh and curious eyes. But without proper guidance from both their
parents and the society or moral disciplines, left-behind children would easily
submit to the influence of some negative moral notions or conduct. This is why
some of these children lack a moral sense, pick up bad habits, and are prone to
criminal activities. According to the record of the People’s Supreme Court, ever
since 2000 the average rate of teenage crime has increased by 13% annually, and
the criminal behavior of left-behind children has become a problem of top urgency.
16 L. Li et al.

The fourth is the security problem. At present, the absence of supervision from
families, schools, and communities has turned left-behind children easy victims to
infringements that involve personal security. Research shows that among kidnapped
children, migrant children rank the first and left-behind children rank the second.
Meanwhile, left-behind children usually lack the ability to cope with unexpected
emergencies. Only 56% temporary guardians would keep constant watch or adopt
preventive measures to protect them from accidents. Most of these guardians only
pay an occasional attention to such occurrences and some even don’t care at all.
This is why a majority of the left-behind children lack both the consciousness of
and the ability to cope with emergencies, especially accidents that threaten personal
safety.
(3) Policy Recommendations on How to Build an Education and Care Service
System for Left-behind Children
In the 30 years to come, China will witness 3 billion migrant works flowing from
the countryside to towns and cities. The whole country will see the formation of “a
population triad” composed of 5 billion urban residents, 5 billion migrants, and 5
billion rural dwellers. So the problem of left-behind children will continue to exist
within a long period of time. The state should adopt a multipronged approach to this
problem by integrating the number of left-behind children with the various prob-
lems of study, psychology, behavior, and security. Here are some specific policy
recommendations on this issue.
First, we recommend putting in place policies that could effectively combine the
local integration of migrant workers with encouragement of their return as entre-
preneurs to get the number of left-behind children under control. Recently, there
have arisen two new trends in regards to rural migrant workers. Above all, the
structural adjustment and industrial upgrading currently under way in the east part
of the country has made it necessary to transfer some of the labor-intensive
industries to the middle and western parts. In recent years some areas in the east
have been faced with the problem of sustainability in regards to such issues as
utilizable fields, energy resources, population burden, as well as environmental
capacity. All these problems tend to constrain the further development of the
conventional manufacturing industries. Meanwhile, the international financial crisis
has obliged the eastern areas to upgrade their industrial structure. Rural migrant
workers will be unavoidably impacted by this structural adjustment and westward
movement of industries. Further, after thirty years of continued outflow, there
started to emerge a reflux trend, a trend that has grown more and more marked.
After years of working outside, many migrant workers have broadened their
visions, acquired certain professional competence, mastered real skills, accumulated
considerable capital, and absorbed the entrepreneurial spirit from the modern cities.
These people are now eager to establish their own enterprises. Some have already
returned to the countryside as elites of this group. Meanwhile, the onslaught of the
global financial crisis has greatly reduced the employment rate, and many migrant
workers lost their job and found it hard to get hired again. This condition also forces
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 17

them to return to their hometown to start their own businesses. The government
should seize upon this rare opportunity, actively directing these two newly arisen
trends, preparing the west for taking over the industries transferred from the east,
putting in place policies centered on the development of the counties, and
encouraging migrant workers to return to start their own businesses. These various
measures would effectively reduce the number of left-behind children [32].
Second, we recommend improving the enrollment of migrant children in city
schools, lower the threshold of enrollment, and encourage parents to migrate with
their children. With the acceleration of urbanization, a most important strategy to
cope with the problem of left-behind children is to give these children equal
opportunities to education, solve the difficulty involved in their enrollment, and
make it possible that more and more children could migrate with their parents. First,
the inflow government should try its best to improve the enrollment of migrant
children and lower the enrollment threshold in public schools. It is partly because of
the difficulty of schooling in cities that migrant workers choose to leave their
children behind. To deepen the implementation of the “Two Priorities” policy on
the education of migrant children, the government should reduce the fees charged,
lower the standard of these charges, and thereby reduce the education cost of
migrant children. Further, the limited resources of public schools make it necessary
to lend support to those private schools responsible for the education of migrant
children. It should be noted that the location, selection of textbooks, and timetables
of some public schools are unable to adapt to the special nature and demand of the
education of migrant children. So it is imperative to encourage private schools to
undertake the education of migrant children, helping them improve the staffing of
teachers, poor teaching quality, as well as the simple and crude facilities. We
suggest constructing a multilayer, multichannel, and multiform admission model
based on the principle of “prioritizing public school and being complemented with
private schools” to solve the enrollment problem faced by migrant children. Also,
we recommend reforming the current educational system. The education system
that promotes “the hierarchical governance structure centered on the local gov-
ernment” should be changed into a system based on the population of regular
residents. This new system should incorporate the education of migrant children
into the overall education budget.
Third, we suggest strengthening the leading role of the government. State and
local governments should incorporate the problem of migrant and left-behind
children into the overall plan concerning rural development, employment of
migrant workers, as well as the construction of social regulation and public service
system. The government should integrate protection of the benefits for migrant and
left-behind children and the related evaluative and supervisory system into its
overall plan for children’s development. The solution of the problem of migrant and
left-behind children should be a key component of a harmonious society. In its
coordination of the rural and urban areas, the state should insure the leading role of
the government in mobilizing the various social forces so that the education, par-
ental care, and personal security of these children could be guaranteed. The gov-
ernment should take lead to retrieve the rural resources to develop rural economy.
18 L. Li et al.

The increase of income would be a great incentive for farmers to stay at home to
participate in the rural construction projects newly invested by the government [33].
Fourth, the state should improve the legal policy concerning migrant and
left-behind children. We suggest reinforcing the legal protection for migrant and
left-behind children to insure the implementation of the “Minors’ Protection Act”
and “Compulsory Education Act.” The government ought to further safeguard the
various rights and benefits of these children, emphasize the duty of the legal
guardians, and the entrusted guardianship system. We advise to establish a pro-
tection system centered on the priority of parental supervision, the complementary
role of the communities, schools, and other sources, as well as the supplement
assistance from the government. The state should also improve the management of
the household registration system and the safeguard of such social benefits as
housing, education, and healthcare, with a view to eliminating the related barriers.
These measures and policies will help coordinate the urban and rural areas and the
different regions and departments so that migrant and left-behind children could
have equal opportunities to social regulation and public service in both the inflow
and outflow places [34].
Fifth, we suggest paying close attention to the instruction of both the migrant
and left-behind children and their parents. Most temporary guardians take
guardianship as attention to the food, clothing, and personal safety of their protégé,
neglecting their psychological health and character building. This leads naturally to
defects in the moral education of these children. To make for these defects, it
requires, above all, a more vigorous implementation of the “Minors Protection Act”
and “Compulsory Education Act” to raise at once the legal consciousness of the
society, parents and guardians’ awareness of their duties, as well as the children’s
own sense of self-protection. Further, we suggest giving parents and guardians
proper instructions via as diverse means as special training courses, family visits,
seminars, or lectures. The purpose is to guide their supervision with scientific ideas,
methods, and strategies. The role of family in the education of migrant and
left-behind children would be greatly weakened by the absence of parents. But
these children’s imbalanced psychology and aberrant behavior would be remedied
if ways could be found to increase the communication and bonding between parents
and children. Thus, on the one hand, it is imperative to raise parents’ consciousness
of the gravity of the problem and the crucial importance of family education. On the
other hand, for children both of whose parents are migrant workers, it is necessary
to have them feel the warmth of family by enhancing their connection and com-
munication with their parents to insure the role of family in their education [35]. We
suggest incorporating family guidance into the rural labor transfer project initiated
by the government to enhance parent’ sense of their duty as the first guardians. We
also recommend developing different kinds of schools for the education of parents
and build a comprehensive online family education system to expand parents’
access to various modes of education opportunities. Channels such as long-distance
online education and rural TV online broadcasting would also give instructions to
the guardians, especially grandparents, and help enhance their supervisory con-
sciousness and ability [36].
1 New Problems and Strategies in the Financial Reform … 19

Sixth, we suggest taking full advantage of school education and explore its
potential in the supervision and regulation of migrant and left-behind children [37].
Since the growth of children is deeply affected by families, schools, and the society,
the education from these three sectors should converge and be consistent. The
incomplete education migrant and left-behind children receive from the family
brings to light the high relevance of the role of schools. First, schools should pay
attention to the psychological development of these children. Schools should
establish a platform by adjusting the curriculum, adding psychological courses, and
launching activities concerning psychological education and consultation to help
cultivate students’ value system and their psychological quality. Meanwhile,
schools should also reinforce teachers’ training in psychological education and
invite psychological experts to combine regular education with the cultivation of
moral and ethical values in the daily life of students. Also, teachers should give
more care and help to migrant and left-behind children, and they are absolutely
forbidden to judge students by “Good or Bad Performance”—a practice to treat
students on the basis of their grades. Teachers give instruction by taking into
account students’ social backgrounds, family conditions, habits and preferences, as
well as individual personality. We suggest establishing a regular contact system
between the guardians and schools to facilitate the communication, coordination,
and cooperation in the education of migrant and left-behind children. Meanwhile,
we recommend instituting family care centers and conducting related activities so
that these children could feel the warmth of a big family while in schools. Further, it
is also important to help these children in self-discipline. Extracurricular and col-
lective activities would encourage them to learn both how to regulate and protect
themselves and how to care and help others.
Seventh, we recommend innovating the governance model concerning the reg-
ulation of migrant and left-behind children, making up for the lack of family
education through a variety of different avenues and by improving their living
environment. Currently, there have accumulated some very good experiences in the
regulation of migrant and left-behind children, such as the perfection of the
boarding system in primary and middle schools, the establishment of entrusted
guardianship centers, as well as the institution of the “surrogate parent” system. The
boarding school system provides a better and safer study and living environment for
these children, and it also helps cultivate good conduct and socializing ability. The
entrusted guardianship centers that aim to collectively regulate the life of the
left-behind children address the problem of the dearth or lack of community edu-
cation for children in rural areas. Community education in the countryside is still a
blank in China, but in providing instructions to the migrant and left-behind chil-
dren, the entrusted guardianship centers would fill in this blank, and thereby serve
as an important supplement to boarding schools. The “surrogate parent” system is
based on a one-to-one matching between the child and the parent, and so can give
the child more attentive and complete care. As such the “surrogate parent” system
would effectively compensates the “emotional vacuum” experienced by the
left-behind children. Left-behind children concern the future of the country. At
present, it is imperative to integrate and propagate all these various successful
20 L. Li et al.

models to improve their living environment. Meanwhile, we suggest mobilizing the

social resources and exploring their various function in the education of these
children. The government could take the initiative to establish a fund for left-behind
children through social donation. It is also a good move to encourage the partici-
pation of non-governmental organizations so that responsible and caring people,
such as retired officials, teachers, and youth volunteers, could provide effective
assistance in the education of these children.
Eighth, we suggest developing vocational education to address the widespread
problem of dropping out, deregulation, and unemployment concerning the
left-behind children. Research shows that one third of left-behind children across
the country would become migrant workers upon graduating from the middle
school. The problems of dropping out, deregulation, and unemployment prove
detrimental to the growth of these children. On the one hand, the state should
reallocate the various educational resources and reinforce investment in rural
education so that it could launch pilot projects of compulsory education in high
schools in areas favorable to such projects. On the other hand, it is imperative to
develop vocational schools, increase the education opportunities for older children,
and thereby effectively address the problems of dropping out, deregulation, and
unemployment. Vocational education is considered the weakest in the three core
education systems, the other two being the middle and high education. State
investment in education is less than 4% of GDP, that allotted to vocational edu-
cation takes up only 8% of this 4%, despite its increasing importance as compared
with middle and high education. In areas that see a marked division between rural
and urban areas, rural education appears especially weak. Currently, we suggest a
multipronged approach to vocational education in the countryside.
Above all, conventional bias and discrimination against vocational education
should be corrected. Given that most rural areas “prize regular education and slight
vocational education,” the government should emphasize their equality through
both financial and policy measures, shifting the emphasis from regular education to
the equality of both regular and vocational education and ultimately to vocational
education. Meanwhile, the government should adopt a preferential policy towards
vocational education in the allocation of human resources with a view to changing
public opinion and increase its appeal. The allocation of other resources should also
show the government’s support of vocational education in rural areas. The priority
of rural education should be made more pronounced, especially in counties beset
with financial problems, through enhanced financial input and payment transfer
from both the central and provincial governments so that the fund of rural education
could be guaranteed. We recommend strengthening the basic infrastructure,
improve facilities in schools and shortage of resources, and try to build a host of
high-quality rural vocational schools with certain scale and improved conditions.
The enrollment in vocational schools should give priority to migrant children.
Given the poor condition of most rural families, we suggest putting in place policies
that aim at compulsory professional education in the countryside through expanding
enrollment and instituting subsidy policies targeted at poor students.
Another random document with
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table, with which it was furnished, were located centrally, and so
crossed each other exactly under the spindle. It was therefore
impossible to use a boring-bar in this tool, and its usefulness was
ridiculously disproportioned to its size. The contrast between it and
the Smith & Coventry drill, which was set in its place, was really
wonderful. We had no trouble in disposing of this and all other
rejected tools to parties who were delighted to get them cheap. It
took us about six months to get rid of all the rubbish and fill the
works with the best tools then obtainable, though still deficient in
many respects, as, for instance, the great planer, which had only one
cutting tool on the cross-slide, whereas a planer of that size should
be provided with four cutting tools—two on the cross-slide and one
on each upright, and should be twice as heavy.
One of the first engines we sold was to D. M. Osborne & Co., the
celebrated makers of mowers and reapers in Auburn, for driving their
rolling mill. This was 18×30-inch engine, making 150 revolutions per
minute, and was the fifth engine I had furnished to different
industries in my native town.
Twenty-five years afterwards I saw this engine running. They had
increased its speed. By means of a large ball on projections of the
forked lever they were able to vary the speed from 200 revolutions to
250 revolutions per minute, according to the sizes they were rolling.
I observed that, as our facilities for doing work were increased, the
belief that I was unable to execute orders became general through
the country, and applications, at first numerous, dwindled to almost
nothing. United and well-directed action would soon have put a new
face on matters, but now I was to meet with obstacles that time could
not overcome.
Mr. Merrick was an amiable and high-toned gentleman, whose
sole aim was to do his duty; but he was exactly the wrong man for
the place. He was not an engineer or mechanic. In the firm of S. V.
Merrick & Sons he had been the office man. He was entirely a man
of routine. He seemed obtuse to a mechanical reason for doing or
not doing anything. Of course he knew nothing about my business.
He was impressed with the idea of the omnipotence of the president,
which in his case was true, as the directors would unanimously
approve of whatever he might do. He at once deprived me of the
power of appointment and discharge in my own department,
arrogating all authority to himself. In addition he was naturally a very
reserved man, I may say secretive. He consulted me about nothing. I
never knew what he proposed to do or was doing until I found out
afterwards. He had grandly confessed his first two blunders, but
unfortunately he continued to make mistakes equally serious to the
end of the chapter.
About the first order we had was from a company formed for
lighting the streets in Philadelphia with arc lights, of which Thomas
Dolan, a prominent manufacturer in Philadelphia, was president. Our
order was for eight engines, 8×16 inches, to drive eight Brush
dynamos each of 40-light power. The order was given to Mr. Merrick.
I never saw Mr. Dolan; his own mill was at the northern end of the
city, and he met Mr. Merrick by appointment at lunch in the business
center, to which conferences I was never invited. When the plant
was in operation I heard incidentally that they had a new engineer at
the electric-light works, and I thought I would go up and make his
acquaintance. I went the same evening. I was met at the door by a
stranger who politely showed me the plant. I did not introduce
myself. He asked me if I were interested in electric lighting. I told him
I was not but might be. He said it was his duty to warn me against
the use of high-speed engines; he should not have advised these,
but found them already installed when he took charge of the place,
and he was doing the best he could to make them answer for the
present, but the works would be greatly enlarged after a while, when
these engines would be gotten rid of and proper engines substituted
in place of them. He called his assistant to corroborate his statement
of the difficulty they had in getting along with them. I listened to these
outrageous falsehoods and looked around and saw the eight
engines running smoothly and silently at 280 revolutions per minute,
each engine exerting the power of four engines of the same size, at
the old maximum speed of 70 revolutions per minute, and giving
absolutely uniform motion without a fly-wheel, and said nothing.
The next morning I made an early call on Mr. Dolan at his office. I
introduced myself to him, although I think he knew me by sight. I told
him the state of affairs I found at the electric-light station and
received from him in reply the following astounding statement. He
said: “Mr. Porter, when this company was formed I selected the
Southwark Foundry as our engineers. I had previously become
acquainted with the running of some of your engines and had come
to the conclusion that they were just what we needed; accordingly I
ordered our first engines from you. I assumed the engineering
department of this enterprise to be in your hands, and that you would
be represented here by an engineer selected by yourselves and
devoted to your interest. Accordingly, when your men had finished
their job I applied to your president to send me an engineer. He sent
me a workman. That was not the kind of man I asked him for; the
engines were in charge of workmen already from your own works. I
wanted an educated man who could represent us in the courts and
before the city councils—in short, an engineering head for this
business, now in its infancy, but which was expected to grow to large
proportions. He ought to have known what I wanted, or if he did not
he should have asked me; his whole manner was entirely indifferent,
he seemed to take no interest in the enterprise.
“Seeing I could get no help from Mr. Merrick, I applied to William
Sellers for an engineer. He sent me a young man from his drawing-
office, and I soon found out he was not the man I wanted; he knew
nothing about a steam-engine—was merely a machine-tool
draftsman—so I found I must rely upon myself. The only man I could
think of was this man I have. He had done some good work for me
two or three years ago in repairing one of my engines, so I offered
him the position, which he accepted. I knew nothing of his
engineering preferences; he seems to be doing very well, and I am
afraid he will have to stay;” and stay he did.
The result was most remarkable. A demand for electric-lighting
plants was springing up in all parts of the country. This became
widely known as a pioneer plant, and was visited daily by parties
who were interested in such projects. These visitors were met at the
door by the engineer and his assistant and were warned, just as I
was, to have nothing to do with a high-speed engine. They were
always business men, quite ignorant of machinery, and with whom
the testimony of two practical men who had experience with the
engines and were actuated in their advice by a sense of duty was
conclusive. The result was that we never had a single application to
supply engines for electric lighting. Yes, we did have one application;
a man came into the office when I was there alone and gave me an
order for his mill and apologized to me for giving it. He said the place
where he was obliged to locate his lighting plant was so limited, he
found he could not get in the engine he wanted.
This result I felt especially exasperated at when a year afterwards
the secretary of the lighting company, who had his office at the
station, told me that he had done something of which he knew his
directors would not approve; he had sold every light they were able
to furnish. He had felt safe in doing this, because no one of the
engines had failed them for an instant. For his part he could not see
what those men were there for—they had absolutely nothing to do
except to start and stop the engines as required and attend to the
oiling. Their principal occupation seemed to be waiting on visitors.
This great disaster would have been avoided if Mr. Merrick had
conferred with me with respect to Mr. Dolan’s most important
request. We should have had a man there who would have told the
truth about the engines, and would have impressed every visitor with
the enormous advantage of the high-speed engine, not only for that
service, but also for every use to which steam power can be applied.
It will be observed that this disaster was widespread and
continuous. It not only caused a great immediate loss, but its
ultimate injury was beyond all computation. Its effect was that the
Porter-Allen engine was shut out of the boundless field of generating
electricity for light and power purposes, a field which was naturally its
own.
The following story is too good to keep, although the incident had
no effect that I am aware of to accelerate my downward progress.
While in Newark I had built for Mr. Edison an engine for his
experimental plant at Menlo Park. The satisfaction this engine gave
may be judged by what follows: One day I had a call from Mr.
Edison, accompanied by Charles L. Clarke, his engineer. They had
been walking very rapidly, and Mr. Edison, who was rather stout, was
quite out of breath. As soon as they were seated, without waiting to
recover his wind Mr. Edison began, ejaculating each sentence while
catching his breath: “Want a thousand engines.” “Thousand
engines.” “Want you to make the plans for them.” “Have all the shops
in New England working on the parts.” “Bring them here to be
assembled.” “Thousand engines.” In the conversation that followed I
gently let Mr. Edison down, not to the earth, but in sight of it. The
result was that two or three weeks afterwards I was injudicious
enough to accept from him an order for twenty-four engines, luckily
all of one size and type. This was to be a rush order, but it called for
new drawings and patterns, as he wanted a special proportion of
diameter and stroke, larger diameter and shorter stroke than those in
my table. Before the drawings and patterns were completed, Mr.
Edison, or the people associated with him, discovered that they had
no place to put more than six of these engines, so the order was
reduced to six. These were for a station which was being prepared
on the west side of Pearl Street, a few doors south of Fulton, New
York City. Three of these engines were finished first. After they had
been running a few days a defect of some kind, the nature of which I
never knew, was discovered, and Mr. Edison’s attention was called
to it. He charged it to the engine, and exclaimed impetuously, “Turn
them out, turn them out!” It was represented to him, however, that
they could hardly do this, as they were under contract for a
considerable amount of light and power, and the current was being
furnished satisfactorily. “Well,” said he, “we’ll have no more of them
at any rate,” so the order for the remaining three engines was
countermanded, and three Armington & Sims engines were ordered
in place of them. When these were started the same difficulty
appeared with them also. A fresh investigation disclosed the fact that
the difficulty was entirely an electrical one, and the engines had
nothing to do with it. Mr. Clarke claimed that had been his belief from
the beginning. So the thousand engines dwindled to three engines
sold and three thrown back on our hands. The two triplets ran
together harmoniously until in the development of the electrical
business that station was abandoned.
Directly after we began to do work, Mr. E. D. Leavitt brought us the
business of the Calumet and Hecla mine. This was then the largest
copper mine in the country, owned by a Boston company of which
Mr. Agassiz, son of the great naturalist, was president. He brought it
to me personally on account of his admiration for the engine, and
also for the character of work which I had inaugurated. His first order
was for an engine of moderate size. While that was building he
brought us a small order for a repair job, amounting perhaps to a
couple of hundred dollars. That work was spoiled in the shop by
some blunder and had to be thrown away and made over again. By
accident I saw the bill for that job; a green boy brought it from the
treasurer’s desk for Mr. Merrick’s approval. We both happened to be
out, and by mistake he laid it on my side of the table. I came in first,
picked it up and read it, and saw that it was for the full amount of the
material and work that had been put on the job. It seemed to me
quite double what it ought to be. I laid it on Mr. Merrick’s side and,
when he came in, told him how I came to see it, and I thought it
should not be sent, being so greatly increased by our own fault.
“Oh,” said he, “they are rich; they won’t mind it.” I said: “That is not
the question with me; I don’t think it is just to charge our customers
for our own blunders.” He smiled at my innocence, saying: “If a
machine-shop does not make its customers pay for its blunders, it
will soon find itself in the poorhouse.” “Well,” said I, “I protest against
this bill being sent.” However, it was sent, and in the course of a few
days a check came for the full amount, and Mr. Merrick laughed at
me. Weeks and months passed away and we had heard no more
from Mr. Leavitt, when I met him in New York at a meeting of the
council of the Society of Mechanical Engineers. When the meeting
was over he invited me to walk with him, and said to me: “I suppose
you have observed that I have not visited the Southwark Foundry
lately.” I told him I had observed it. He then said: “Do you remember
that bill?” I told him I did very well, and how vainly I had protested
against its being sent. He said: “When that bill was brought to me for
approval, I hesitated about putting my initials to it until I had shown it
to Mr. Agassiz. I told him what the job was and the bill was quite
twice as large as I had expected. He replied, ‘Pay it, but don’t go to
them any more,’ and I have taken our work to the Dickson
Manufacturing Company at Scranton.” I realized that I had lost the
most influential engineering friend I had since the death of Mr.
Holley. I heard some years after, and believe it, though I do not
vouch for its correctness, that the work sent to the Dickson
Manufacturing Company through Mr. Leavitt had in one year
exceeded one hundred thousand dollars.
 E. D. Leavitt

Some time previous to these events, Mr. Merrick had done a very
high-handed thing. Assuming supreme power as president of the
company, he had invaded my department, and, without a word to
me, had appointed over Mr. Goodfellow a superintendent to suit
himself, reducing Mr. Goodfellow to be general foreman of the
machine-shop, to take his orders from the new superintendent and
not from me, whereupon Mr. Goodfellow resigned, and accepted a
position as master mechanic in the Pennsylvania Steel Works, and
by his advice the engine ordered by them from me was taken from
the Southwark Foundry in its incomplete condition and finished by
themselves under Mr. Goodfellow’s direction. Mr. Merrick then filled
Mr. Goodfellow’s place with another friend of his own as general
foreman, a man who would have been as valuable as a stick of wood
but for his incessant blunders. I was fully alive to the arbitrary nature
of this usurpation, but was entirely helpless, knowing perfectly well
that the directors would sustain the president in whatever he did.
With the coming of the new superintendent, the fatal change took
place. He came, first of all, full of the superiority of Philadelphia
mechanics, and, second, feeling that in the nature of things I must be
entirely ignorant of anything mechanical. I was nothing but a New
York lawyer; never did a day’s work in a shop in my life; had gone
into a business I was not educated to and knew nothing about. My
presuming to give orders to mechanics, and Philadelphia mechanics
too, filled him with indignation. He would not take an order from me
—perish the thought—and as for my drawings, he would depart from
them as much as he liked.
All this appeared by degrees. I observed on the floor several
cylinders fitted up, in which the followers for the piston-rod stuffing-
boxes were made sliding fits on the rods. I asked him why he had
made them in this way when they were drawn and figured to be
bored ¹⁄₃₂ inch larger than the rod. He replied, “Because this is the
way they ought to be.” I told him every one of them would be fired
before the engine had run an hour; that I wanted him to bore those
followers to the drawings, as well as the cylinder heads back of the
stuffing-boxes. “It shall be done, sir,” said he. On examining them
after this had been done, I found he had turned as much off from the
outside of the followers as he had bored out of the hole. I asked him
why he had done that. He said he supposed if I wanted the inside to
be loose, I wanted the outside to be loose too. I told him I did not. He
asked me why. I told him he was not there to argue with me; I
wanted him to throw those followers away and make new ones
precisely to the drawings, and I saw to it myself that it was done. I
went to Mr. Merrick about this matter, and can the reader imagine
what his reply was? “My advice to you, Mr. Porter, is to leave all such
matters to the superintendent.” Think of it; an amateur president
assuming the direction of my business, and giving such advice to
me, who never had left the least thing to anybody, and without
considering the fact that the action of his superintendent would be
ruinous, except for my interference. I realized that I was absolutely
alone, but I felt very much like fighting the whole world. The above
incident is a fair sample of my constant experience. I was on the
watch all the time. Many times I required the work to be done over
when the superintendent departed from my drawings, and in doing it
over he generally contrived to ruin the job, and would say, “Just
according to your orders, sir.” I was reminded of a story told of Dr.
Beman, a minister of Troy, N. Y., whose wife was peculiar, to say the
least. On a certain occasion the presbytery met in Troy, and one
evening he invited its members to his house, and told his wife to
provide just a light supper. When they were ushered into the supper-
room there was nothing on the table but lighted candles. “A light
supper,” said she, “just as you ordered, sir.”
 Samuel T. Wellman

I proposed to appoint an inspector to represent me. The general

foreman said if an inspector were appointed he should resign, and
Mr. Merrick forbade it. Was ever a man in so helpless and ridiculous
a position?

February 2nd Porter-Allen Engine—40×48

Otis Iron and Steel Co.
93 Rev. Cleveland,
84 Lbs. } April 14, 1882

The second of the large engines which I finished was for the Otis
Steel Works. I went to Cleveland myself to start the engine and
found that Mr. Wellman, the general manager, had it running already.
Mr. Otis, the president, was very much pleased with it, and well he
might be. This was the first mill to roll plates from the ingot to the
finish without reheating. These were the kind of diagrams it made. It
will be observed that these were taken at different times and under
different pressures. Unfortunately the right hand one is the only
diagram I have from the crank end of the cylinder. In rolling these
heavy plates the changes were made instantaneously from full load
to nothing and from nothing to full load. The engine made 93
revolutions per minute, and it will be seen that the changes were
made by the governor in a third of a second or less, the speed not
varying sensibly. Mr. Otis said to me: “Oh, Mr. Porter, what shall I do
with you? You cannot imagine the loss I have suffered from your
delay in furnishing this engine.” I said: “Mr. Otis, you know the
terrible time I have had, and that I have done the very best I could.”
“Yes,” he said, “I know all about it.” He had, in fact, been to
Philadelphia and seen for himself. He added: “You make a small
engine suitable for electric lights; what is the price of an engine
maintaining twenty-five arc lights?” I told him $1050. “Well,” said he,
“you strike off the odd fifty and let me have one for a thousand
dollars, and we will call it square,” so I had some sunshine on my
way. I present a portrait of this just man. The engine is now running
as good as new after twenty-five years, and the company five or six
years afterwards put in another 48×66-inch to drive a still larger train.
I had a funny experience at the Cambria Works which has always
seemed to me to have been prophetic. In August, 1881, the Society
of Mechanical Engineers held a meeting in Altoona, and the
Pennsylvania Railroad Company gave us an excursion to Johnstown
to visit the works of the Cambria Company. The anticipations of the
members were expressed by Jackson Bailey, then the editor of the
American Machinist. As I was going through a car in which he was
seated he called out to me, “This is your day, Porter.” The party was
taken in charge by Mr. Morrell, the general manager. Our route took
us first to their new blast-furnaces, where considerable time was
spent in examining their new and interesting features. Next we came
to my second engine, started some two months before. The engine
was just being slowed down; we were told there were not yet
furnaces enough to keep the train running continuously, so they were
shut down from half an hour to an hour between heats, and a heat
had just been run off. We went next to see my rail-mill engine, which
had raised the output of that mill 150 per cent. That too had been
shut down. They had just broken a roll, a most rare accident and one
which I had never before seen or heard of there. “Well, gentlemen,”
said I, “at any rate I can show you my engine driving a cold saw.”
Arrived at the spot, we found that all still, and were told that sawing
cold rails was not a continuous operation, we had hit upon the noon
hour, and the men had gone to their dinner. That was the end of the
show, as far as I was concerned. The Gautier Works were a mile
away and were not included in our visit, so we were entertained with
the great blooming-mill in operation and the casting of the enormous
ingots for it, and after the customary luncheon and speeches we
returned to Altoona.
 Charles A. Otis

One day the superintendent came into the office and told me he
had tried my machine for facing nuts and it would not work. I felt
disappointed, because I had confidence in it. I went out to see what
the matter was, and at a glance I saw that it had been ingeniously
arranged not to work. The feed had been made rapid and the cutting
motion very slow, so that the tools could not take their cuts and the
slow-moving belt ran off the pulleys. I did not reduce the feed-
motion, but increased the speed of the cutters and the belt some
eight or ten-fold, when the trouble vanished. I never knew anything
to work better than that tool did.
 Porter-Allen Engine 40″×48″ #207
Dash pot for Governor.

The burning anxiety of the superintendent was to show up my

ignorance. A first-rate chance to do so soon seemed to present itself.
The counterpoise of the governor of the Otis engine dropped
instantly to its seat when a plate struck the rolls and as instantly rose
to the top of its range of action when it left them. This made a noisy
blow which was disagreeable and might in time cause an accident.
Mr. Wellman sent me a sketch of a device he had thought of for
arresting this motion by air-cushions. I told the superintendent to
have that apparatus made and make the air-cushions four inches in
diameter. He said four inches diameter would not answer; they must
be eight inches. “No,” said I, “four inches diameter is ample; make
them four inches.” A few days after he called me into the shop to try
my four-inch air-cushions. I found the apparatus secured in a vise in
a vertical position. I took hold of the lever and lifted the piston; it met
with no resistance until it struck sharply against the end of the
chamber. For a moment I was stunned by the man’s audacity, and
threw the piston up and down again to make sure it was not a
dream. I then turned my back on the superintendent and called to a
boy to find Mr. Fulmer, the foreman of the second floor, and tell him I
wanted him here. In a moment he appeared, and I said to him: “Mr.
Fulmer, I want you to make a new piston for this apparatus and
make it a proper fit; you understand.” Mr. Fulmer bowed assent. I
added: “There will be time to-day to get it into the sand, and it can be
finished early to-morrow. When it is ready for my inspection come
yourself to the office and let me know.” About the middle of the next
forenoon Mr. Fulmer called for me. I went in and found the piston
arrested at each end of its motion by a perfect air-cushion. “All right,”
said I, “see that it is shipped to-day.”
Mr. Fulmer was an excellent mechanic and a man of good general
intelligence; he would have made the piston a proper fit in the first
place if he had not been expressly ordered to make it loose and
useless. The superintendent, on his persistent assumption that I was
a fool, had actually expected me to say when I tried the apparatus:
“Oh, I see, four inches diameter will not do. You will have to make it
eight.”
Some time in 1881 or 1882 I had a queer experience with an
engine for the New York Post Office. It was to take the place of an
engine then running. The engineer of the Post Office informed me
that this engine had a cylinder twelve inches in diameter. I told him it
looked to me from the external dimensions that the diameter must be
fourteen inches and asked him to take off the back head and
measure it for me. He wrote me a few days after that he found that
he could not get the back head off, but I might rely upon it being
twelve inches. So I did rely upon it being fourteen inches, furnished
an engine accordingly, and found it to be the size needed.
Daniel J. Morrell
 Some time after the engine was started I received a line from the
Postmaster saying they were much disappointed in it. They expected
a gain in economy, but they were burning more coal than before,
also that the engine pounded badly. I went to New York to see what
the matter was. The engine seemed to be working all right except for
the knock, so I made my way down to the sub-cellar. There was
nothing there but the boilers and the engineer’s desk. On the cellar
stairs, after I had shut the door behind me, I heard a loud sound of
escaping steam. The boilers were under the middle of the building; a
four-inch steam-pipe ran from them a distance of about eighty feet,
suspended from the ceiling, to a point under the engine, then turned
up through the floor to the under side of the steam-chest. The
exhaust pipe, of the same size, came from the engine through the
floor and was carried parallel with the steam-pipe to the middle of the
building and upward through the roof. The two pipes were about
eighteen inches apart, and in the vertical portions under the ceiling
they had been connected by a half-inch pipe having a globe valve in
the middle of its length. The valve-stem was downward and the valve
set wide open. The noise I heard was caused by the steam rushing
through this pipe. I computed that about as much steam was being
thus blown away as was used by the engine. My first impulse was to
call upon the Postmaster and tell him what I had found, but I decided
not to bother him. I could not reach the valve to close it, but
discovered a box used for a step to an opening in the wall, so I
brought that out and standing upon it was able to close the valve;
then the noise ceased and I put the box back.
There was no one in the cellar but a boy firing the boilers. I asked
him if he knew who put that pipe there. He knew nothing about it, but
supposed our men put it there when they set up the engine. I hunted
up the engineer and asked him the same question, and got the same
answer. I went to the people who did the engineering work for the
Post Office and who had put in the pipes; they knew nothing about it.
I could find out nothing, but had to content myself with telling the
engineer that I had closed the valve and relied upon him to keep it
closed. I asked him what he thought caused the thump in the engine;
he said he had not the slightest idea, but he would try to cure it. I
contented myself with writing to the Postmaster that I had removed
the cause of the waste of steam and hoped he would now find the
engine satisfactory. Soon after Mr. Merrick was in New York for two
or three days. When he came home he said: “I have cured the thump
in that Post Office engine.” “How did you do it?” I asked. He replied:
“I gave the engineer a twenty-dollar gold piece, and when I went to
see it the next morning the thump was gone.” I should add that when
the old engine was taken down I had the back cylinder head
removed, which was done without difficulty, and found the diameter
fourteen inches. “For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” this
engineer was “peculiar” in my experience.
I had brought with me from Newark an order from the Willimantic
Linen Company, who were manufacturers of cotton thread, for two
engines for quite an interesting application. They were building a
new mill entirely unique in its design, which has never been
repeated, being an ignorant freak. It was a one-story mill 800 feet
long and 250 or 300 feet wide, intended to contain five lines of
shafting. Each line was independent and drove the machinery for all
the successive operations from opening the cotton bales to packing
the spools of thread. These lines of shafting 800 feet long were to be
in the basement and to drive these machines by belts through the
floor, the engine to be in the middle of each line. For this purpose I
supplied a pair of condensing engines, 11 inches diameter of
cylinder and 16 inches stroke, making 350 revolutions per minute,
with their cranks set at right angles with each other in the line of
shafting. These required no fly-wheel and would start from any
position. I had a great deal of trouble with this order on account of
the delay in its execution, so much so that before the first engine
was finished the order for the second one was countermanded, and
this order was placed with the Hartford Engineering Company, a new
concern which was foolish enough to undertake the same speed.
However, after my first engine was started they found themselves
face to face with an impossibility and had to throw up their contract,
whereupon the president of the company became very civil and
asked me to be kind enough to make the second engine for them,
which I was quite happy to do, as I had on hand the peculiar bed for
these engines, which I did not break up after the order was
countermanded, but had it set up against the wall of the shop in