Education policy unfavorable to the Vietnamese students:
(i) The Tonkin Free School was started in 1907 to provide a Western-style education. This education included classes in science, hygiene, and French.
(ii) The school encouraged the adoption of Western styles such as having a short haircut.
(iii) For the Vietnamese, this meant a major break with their own identity.
(iv) Teachers and students did not blindly follow the curriculum. Sometimes there was open opposition and at other times there was silent resistance.
(v) As the number of Vietnamese teachers increased in the lower classes, it became difficult to control wl-rat was actually taught.
(vi) School textbooks glorified the French and justified the colonial rule.
(vii) The Vietnamese were represented as primitive and backward capable of manual labor but not of intellectual reflection.
