The Thousand Character Classic has been used as a primer for teaching Chinese characters to children since the Liang dynasty in the sixth century. It contains exactly one thousand characters, arranged into 250 lines of four-character phrases. It is also grouped into rhyming stanzas to make it easy to memorise.Together with Trimetric Classic and the Hundred Family Surnames, these three books came to be known as San Bai Qian (Three, Hundred, Thousand) from the first character in their titles. These three books were used by boys from privileged background as well as commoners in the villagers.This rare book was printed in Singapore by Yong Cheng Shu Ju (Yong Cheng Bookshop) during the early Republican period. When the Chinese settled in Singapore in large numbers from the early 19th century, they also brought over this system to educate their children. Chinese education was provided mainly by traditional private schools known as sishu, and the education curriculum centered on the teaching of Confucian texts and classics. The classes were conducted by scholars from China and held in venues such as clan associations, ancestral halls and temples.
