Playing with the classical texts: how Tong Xiegeng’s Yizhi puzzle redefined traditional Chinese education in late Qing and Republican China

Abstract Amidst the pedagogical anxieties of the late Qing and Republican China, Tong Xiegeng’s yizhi puzzle (1862) emerged as a creative response to a rigid educational system that privileged rote memorization and dismissed play. This article argues that the puzzle and its accompanying books represent a sophisticated, bottom-up attempt to redefine traditional Chinese education by transforming the classical texts into an interactive, child-centered experience. Through an innovative 15-piece puzzle and a series of books, Tong created a multimodal “edutainment” ecosystem. The study highlights the puzzle’s core pedagogical method: a synergy of text and image ( tuwen jiehe ) that shifted the child from a passive recipient of memorized text into an active constructor of meaning. Learning was achieved through hands-on, embodied play, internalizing classical knowledge rather than merely reciting it. By challenging the traditional dismissal of play ( xi wuyi ), Tong’s work prefigured a modern, child-centered pedagogy and stands as a powerful example of private cultural synthesis as a form of educational reform.