Chapter 441 No Cure
"How is the enrollment of students going?" Song Xuanyu asked Master Liu.
"A total of seventy-five people have registered for the county school, mainly officials, gentry, and merchants. In addition, there are seven or eight children from Jinfeng Village who have registered, which is the village with the most. Other villages rarely have even one or two people." Mr. Liu Si replied.
Song Xuanyu raised his eyebrows, somewhat surprised.
When the granaries are full, people know etiquette; when they are rich and have full stomachs, they have a strong desire to study.
Everyone who can afford to study in Jinfengzhai should have signed up, as they are people with plenty of money.
There is no need to compare with Huanggou Village, as they have long provided free education to all the villagers.
In other villages, only one or two people study, which is the true reflection of the village.
"What about the girls' school? How many people have signed up?" Song Xuanyu asked.
"Uh, thirty-nine people! They are all officials, gentry, merchants and girls from Jinfeng Village." Master Liu replied.
"There's not a single other village?" Song Xuanyu was surprised.
The girls' school, which was originally set up for poor girls from the countryside, had no one willing to sign up. Those who should have come did not come, and those who came were those who should not have come.
Song Xuanyu tapped the table with his fingers. This was too unexpected. Giving it to the rich for free was putting the cart before the horse and contrary to the original intention!
Fortunately, the school building was completed in May, so it was still early for school to start and there was no need to rush to finalize it.
Song Xuanyu didn't care whether the poor came or not, but this free gift was not worth it, because those who came were people with plenty of money.
"Let's go to Huanggou Village!" Song Xuanyu couldn't think of a good solution for the time being, so he went out for a walk to relax.
I remembered what Su Ying said about the colorful silkworm showing different effects after three sleeps. Now it’s almost its fourth sleep, so I’ll go and see what the difference is!
Before reaching Huanggou Village, we saw a place with blue smoke rising from a distance and a lot of noise. The cement truck from Qingshishan had just finished unloading the cargo and was coming out of the village.
"Sir!" The clerk from the workshop, covered in dust, ran to see the county magistrate.
"Well, how is it? Is it going well?" Song Xuanyu stood with his hands behind his back, looking at several half-built walls where masons were busy working.
"The cement adhesive works well!" Cao Li said with a smile on his face.
Over the past year, the Workshop and the Household Affairs Office were the busiest. Unlike the Household Affairs Office, no matter how well the Household Affairs Office did its job, the grain would be stored in the imperial granary.
He is different. He has learned all the skills by himself, including cement production, cement roads, and mixed brick structure houses.
It is a rare and good job that not only can you achieve political achievements but also make money for yourself.
After the completion of this mixed brick structure school building, more people came to him to build houses.
"Well, good, do a good job!" Song Xuanyu nodded.
The construction site was a mess, filled with blue bricks, river sand, cement, lime, and wood, so he didn't wander around.
When we arrived at Su's house, Su Ying was not there. She was teaching the children in the silkworm room.
Song Xuanyu hurried to the old house behind.
It was quiet. When I opened the door, I saw the children working quietly. Some were feeding the silkworms, while others were cleaning the silkworm feces, all in an orderly manner.
Song Xuanyu looked at the silkworms in the winnowing basket and was stunned for a moment.
"Why did it change?" All the silkworms in this room are red, and their feet are red, which is very eye-catching.
"Yes, after three sleeps, they start to be different." Su Ying said with a smile.
Song Xuanyu thought of something and went to look in other rooms.
Yellow, purple, indigo! Every room is different.
"What, what is going on? They became so neat! They must have been fed something! Right?" Song Xuanyu guessed.
The silkworms were previously fed garlic and brown sugar water, and they grew fat and strong. Now that they have changed color, they must have been fed something else.
Su Ying nodded, "Guess again!"
"What is it? Silkworms can eat them and not only not die, but also change color?" Song Xuanyu was puzzled. "The silk they produce is all the same color?"
"There will be differences in shades, and after the cocoons are made, the colors need to be sorted. The ones with more colors are woven into pure colors, while the ones with less colors are woven into colorful or gradient colors.
There are also newly designed brocades with Chinese slang elements, and there may be new brocades this year." Su Ying said with a smile.
"Master Xiao Su! Can you tell me what you feed them?" Song Xuanyu asked, "I know this is a specialty unique to Wu County and will not be passed on to others."
"Herbal pigment!" Su Ying uttered these four words softly.
"?" Song Xuanyu was stunned, thinking that it would take a while for Renjian to speak, but Renjian gave the answer lightly.
"Herbal pigment? Does that mean it will spit out colored threads based on the pigment it eats?" Song Xuanyu understood immediately.
Su Ying nodded.
"Why?" Song Xuanyu was really curious. It was so magical that the pigment he ate turned into silk.
"Because its silk-spinning is related to the silkworm's feet, where there are spiracles. The secretions from the silkworm's body are transformed into silk through the spiracles..." Su Ying explained in detail the principle of silkworm spinning.
"So that's it!" Song Xuanyu sighed.
It felt like I was listening to a fantasy story. This is how the little silkworms spin silk.
Master Liu and the children nearby were listening quietly.
The children in Huanggou Village already knew this, but they still listened with great interest. Every time Su Ying would mix in new knowledge.
Although this technology has not been made public, anyone who comes to Huanggou Village to study can learn it, including the official school for girls that will follow.
"Master Song, you didn't come here today just to see the colored silkworms, right?" Su Ying brought out Song Xuanyu and Master Liu.
"Alas, there are some troubles in girls' school!" Song Xuanyu sighed, annoyed by the ignorance of the poor.
Do you really think that free education is within your reach? Haven't you seen that county schools charge normal tuition fees?
In the past five thousand years, how many schools in Daxing were completely free? They don't even know to bend down to pick up the money they dropped on the ground. They are hopeless.
After listening to Song Xuanyu's explanation of the registration situation, Su Ying was silent for a while.
Should they go door to door to mobilize poor families to send their daughters to study? Or should they directly admit the top 20 students after an interview?
The original intention of the official school for girls was to enable girls from lower classes to learn skills so that they could work as managers in textile factories in the future or start their own family workshops.
The purpose of helping the poor was achieved, but the poor did not understand the spirit.
It also makes sense to interview, screen and admit the girls directly from among the registered ones, after all, they are the first to try it out.
Just for this courage, he should be rewarded.
Were women's official schools to be reduced to just another resource controlled by local officials and gentry? Su Ying was unwilling to accept this and just became someone else's puppet!
Several people were silent, not because they couldn't think of a solution, but because they found it difficult to make a decision.
"I was careless. The registration requirements only restricted gender and age, but forgot to require identity and family status." Su Ying sighed after a long time.
"If that doesn't work, split the twenty spots. Ten will be given to officials, gentry, and merchants. The remaining spots will be distributed among the towns and villages, and must be filled by impoverished farmers."
In this way, it is also a recognition of the group of people who took the lead in registering, and it will prevent the women's official school from being controlled by local officials, gentry, and merchants.
Also give opportunities to girls from poor families.
This is the only way for the first phase. The threshold will have to be set high later. After a few years, when the cotton textile industry flourishes, more poor people will want to attend the official women's school.
"Well, let's wait and see. If there is no change, we'll talk about it then!" Song Xuanyu smiled.
If there are problems that cannot be solved now, let time solve them!
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