March 1, 1959: Group photo of Gu Jingzhou with craft class students in front of the courtyard of the calligraphy group (from left: Gao Yongjin, Shu Fengying, Wang Yajie, Li Changhong, Gu Jingjiao, Gao Haigeng, Wang Hongjun, Bao Xiuyun, Shi Jihua, Shen Guohua) The "Liyong Pottery Apprentice Training Institute" was founded by the Liyong Company, "recruiting twenty apprentices, with instruction and skill transmission provided by Fan Da and the 'Six Masters.' Regular examinations were conducted to promote learning through assessment. This enterprise-based training model cultivated a group of talents including Chu Ming, Ye Dexi, and Han Guilin."[1] The "Jiangsu Provincial Public Yixing Vocational School," established in 1931, included a "Pottery Workers Department," which was renamed the "Ceramics Department" the following year. In 1933, the Ceramics Department separated from Yixing Vocational School to establish an independent institution called the "Jiangsu Provincial Yixing Junior Ceramic School" (abbreviated as "Provincial Ceramic School"). The school hired Wu Yungen, Zhu Kexin, and others as teachers and experimental workshop technicians, adopting a group teaching method with multiple masters and multiple apprentices, changing the traditional one-master-one-apprentice transmission method. However, this prosperity was short-lived. In 1937, the outbreak of the War of Resistance forced the school to disband. It reopened in 1947 but closed again in 1950. The establishment of the Yixing Zisha [pottery cooperative] completely transformed the centuries-old workshop-style production model of the zisha industry, creating a favorable organizational system for the later factory-scale production at the Yixing Zisha Factory. At the same time, this production method changed the closed master-apprentice model that existed under the original workshop-style production conditions, forming a more complete apprentice training mechanism that removed the barriers of the traditional master-apprentice system, opening opportunities for more aspiring individuals. --- [1] Fan Weiqun, ed., *A Historical Account of Zisha Pottery in the Republican Era* (Nanjing: Jiangsu Fine Arts Publishing House, October 2012), p. 8.