The first is the idea of "five educations"
Cai Yuanpei was the first educational thinker who put forward that "military education, materialism education, civic moral education, world outlook education and aesthetic education cannot be ignored in modern education", and advocated that five kinds of education should be carried out simultaneously, which is a remarkable feature of Cai Yuanpei's educational thought.
1. Put forward the background
Shortly after the victory of the Revolution of 1911, the Nanjing Provisional Government was put forward just after its establishment. At that time, education in China was at an important turning point in history. With the victory of the Revolution of 1911, thousands of years of feudal rule in China was overthrown. However, the feudal education reform in the field of education has just started, only some specific temporary regulations have been promulgated, and there is still a lack of clear educational guiding ideology and new educational purposes.
In order to make the bourgeois reform of feudal education develop deeply and healthily, it is urgent to determine an educational purpose that reflects the bourgeois requirements as soon as possible under the guidance of unified educational ideas, so as to stipulate the bourgeois objectives and requirements for talent training. Only in this situation, Cai Yuanpei published a famous educational paper "New Education Theory" on February 19 12, and systematically put forward the idea of "five educations at the same time".
2. Military national education
Cai Yuanpei, who came from abroad in the late Qing Dynasty, thought that he was not an education in an ideal society, but in China, he was a "person who can't help learning today". The main reasons are:
(1) From the external environment, China is in a state of "desperate self-defense, and the state power lost for many years cannot be restored unless it relies on force."
(2) As far as the domestic situation is concerned, in order to break the situation that soldiers become a "national special class", it is necessary to "make the whole country a soldier, otherwise its power cannot be averaged". It can be seen that Cai Yuanpei advocated military national education for external self-defense and internal opposition to military power rule, which was progressive at that time.
3. Materialist education
Materialist education is regarded by Cai Yuanpei as a means to enrich the country. He believes that the competition in the world is not only military, but also financial. Therefore, only by strengthening science and technology education, improving productivity and developing the national economy can a country survive in the world competition.
4. Civic moral education
Cai Yuanpei believes that military national education and materialism education are of course important, but only military national education and materialism education are not enough, and they must be "taught by civic morality." "What is civic morality? The French Revolution was also advertised as freedom, equality and fraternity. The essence of morality is enough. "
It can be seen that Cai Yuanpei advocates the moral concept of the western bourgeoisie and advocates the bourgeois morality of freedom, equality and fraternity as the content of moral education.
Cai Yuanpei did not completely deny China's traditional moral thought when he advocated the western bourgeois moral concept. He compared the moral concept of "freedom, equality and fraternity" of the modern bourgeoisie in the west to "righteousness, forgiveness and benevolence" advocated by the ancient Confucianism in China. Needless to say, this analogy is far-fetched. However, what he did was meaningful. He advocates the extensive absorption of foreign cultures. At the same time, he stressed that when absorbing foreign cultures, "we must choose people who can digest" and "we must assimilate with" I ",not with each other". He criticized some people for their weak aspirations and "giving up donating their" me "and assimilating with outsiders" when studying abroad.
5. World outlook education
World outlook education was initiated by Cai Yuanpei in the history of modern education in China and influenced by Kant's philosophy. It holds that the world is divided into two parts: the phenomenal world and the physical world. The education of world outlook lies in cultivating people to take a detached attitude towards the phenomenal world and a positive attitude towards the physical world. Cai Yuanpei's world outlook education is based on the idealistic world outlook that divides the world into the phenomenal world and the substantive world. However, he asked people to follow the principle of freedom of thought and speech and not be bound by a certain theory.
6. Aesthetic education
Cai Yuanpei is the "only backbone task" to advocate aesthetic education in modern history of China. He believes that aesthetic education is the most important way to educate the world outlook and the only bridge that people must cross from the phenomenal world to the physical world. The importance of aesthetic education stems from its characteristics. In his view, there are only two obstacles for people to move from the phenomenon world to the entity world. One is the difference between people and me, and the other is the pursuit of happiness. "Someone and I, there are all kinds of boundary paintings in the phenomenon, which are all contrary to the entity. If you have a camp, you will try. If you don't have yourself, you will have pain. And its tunneling is an excessive demand, which follows the phenomenon and leaves the entity. " Therefore, the key to being an official is to move from the phenomenon world to the entity world, which is the characteristic of aesthetic education. He said that in the phenomenal world, everyone has feelings of love, fear, anger, sorrow and joy, but these feelings change with the phenomena of people's clutch, life and death, fortunes and interests, while aesthetic education makes people "have no other thoughts except aesthetic feelings". Later, in the article "Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education", he made the characteristics of aesthetic education more clear: "Pure aesthetic education cultivates our feelings, makes us have noble and pure habits, and makes people's independent, self-interested and selfish thoughts gradually eliminate degenerate people." It is precisely because aesthetic education has the characteristics of cultivating people's feelings and making people's moral quality noble and pure. Therefore, Cai Yuanpei thinks: "Therefore, educators have to use aesthetic education if they want to reach the concept of material world from the phenomenon world."
The philosophical basis of Cai Yuanpei's aesthetic education thought is idealism, which is deeply influenced by Kant's aesthetic thought. He repeatedly publicized the universality and transcendence of aesthetic feeling, which was obviously super-class and surreal, exaggerated the role of aesthetic education and advocated that people should pay special attention to aesthetic education. These are all correct.
Cai Yuanpei believes that the above five kinds of education, despite their different functions, are all necessary to "cultivate the sound personality of the people of the Republic" and are indispensable to the unification of the whole. At the same time, he pointed out that these five kinds of education are not equally divided and have no emphasis, but must be based on civic moral education. "The fifth is based on civic morality, covering the world outlook and aesthetic education, so morality can be completed, and military national education and materialism must be based on this.
Cai Yuanpei's thought of "five educations" takes civic moral education as the core at the same time, which is the first time in the history of modern education in China. However, it also has its limitations. First of all, he divided the world into two parts: the phenomenal world and the substantive world, and divided education into political education, civic moral education and utilitarian education. This division is unscientific. Secondly, it is believed that the ultimate goal of education is not for the happiness of this world, but to achieve a material world that is not worthy of its name, and if it is necessary to insist on its name, it is "Tao, Tai Chi, dark consciousness or ignorant will". In addition, when he elaborated on civic moral education, world outlook education, aesthetic education and other issues, there were also some shortcomings such as being super-class, surreal and far-fetched.
Second, the concept of university education
In the whole education system, Cai Yuanpei's university education thought occupies a very prominent position, which is closely related to his emphasis on higher education. He believes that this is the key to the development of education in China. So he said, "His interest is in higher education, and he should take part in more opinions about higher education.". Therefore, he has presided over Peking University for a long time and has rich practical experience in university education. As a result, a more systematic idea of university education has been formed.
1. On the Essence of University
Cai Yuanpei believes that universities should become institutions for learning advanced knowledge, which is the guiding ideology of Cai Yuanpei's running a school and the starting point of his thoughts on university education. As early as 19 12 May 16, he attended the opening ceremony of Peking University as the chief education officer, and put forward in his speech that "universities are places to learn noble knowledge." After serving as president of Peking University. He repeated the idea. 19 17 65438+2007 10 9, in his speech as principal, he clearly explained to the students: "You must have a purpose to study here. To be fair, we must predict the nature of universities. Nowadays, it is inevitable that people will succeed in their studies when they run special schools. But this is not the case in universities, and those who learn advanced knowledge are also great scholars. "
Cai Yuanpei emphasized that the essence of university is to learn profound knowledge, in order to reverse the outdated concept that students go to university to be officials. At that time, students still held the idea of the imperial examination era, taking universities as the organ to obtain official positions, but they were not interested in learning. Cai Yuanpei pointed out that this is the "total cause of fame and corruption" of Peking University. Therefore, he believes that to reform the old Peking University, "the first thing to reform is the concept of students."
Because the essence of a university is to study profound knowledge, he also suggested that universities should not only engage in teaching, but also engage in scientific research. He asked university teachers not to instill fixed knowledge, but to have a strong research interest in learning and stimulate students' research interest; College students do not memorize the teacher's lecture notes by rote, but learn knowledge automatically under the guidance of the teacher. In order to enable universities to undertake the dual tasks of teaching and scientific research, he strongly advocated that "every university must have various scientific research institutes". In his article "Why should universities set up research institutes in various disciplines", he listed three reasons in detail:
First, "if there is no research institute in the university, teachers will easily fall into the bad habit of copying handouts and not making progress."
The second is to set up research institutes to create conditions for college graduates to further their studies.
The third is to give senior college students the opportunity to engage in scientific research under the guidance of their tutors.
2. The principle of running a school-freedom of thought and inclusiveness.
Cai Yuanpei put forward this principle of running a school from the idea that a university should be an institution for studying advanced knowledge. He believes that universities should absorb all kinds of talents and accommodate different schools. It is impossible to become a truly high-level university by holding on to the shortcomings, holding on to the theory of one hole and keeping on to the words of one family.
The principle of ideological freedom and tolerance in running a school is mainly embodied in theory and the treatment of teachers. Because theories must be advocated, publicized and developed by people, and teachers take research and imparting knowledge as their own responsibility, the principle of ideological freedom and inclusiveness in running schools is more reflected in the treatment of teachers in practice. When Cai Yuanpei hires a teacher, the most important thing is whether he has professional knowledge. As long as you learn real talents and have the interest and ability to learn knowledge, you will be hired as a teacher. On the other hand, if the academic level is low, no matter who they are, they will insist on dismissal. As for teachers' political opinions and academic factions, as long as they do not interfere with teaching, they are not used as the selection criteria.
Of course, Cai Yuanpei advocates freedom of thought and inclusiveness, not an impartial attitude towards old and new ideas. On the contrary, his original intention was to break the shackles of feudal cultural absolutism and develop a new bourgeois culture.
3. Discipline setting-from emphasizing arts and sciences to communicating arts and sciences, canceling disciplines and setting up departments.
Cai Yuanpei's thought of university discipline setting has experienced a process of change and development. At first, he advocated that "universities should be institutions for studying academic theories".
After Cai Yuanpei became the president of Peking University, he further advocated "academic branch schools" for two reasons: first, liberal arts, specializing in science, and other disciplines focused on practicality; Second, the arts and sciences have research institutes, laboratories and other facilities. If other subjects are set up all over the world, it will be more difficult to add hospitals and workshops.
Advocating the establishment of academic disciplines and universities specializing in arts and sciences is obviously a development of the view that "universities attach importance to arts and sciences" in the first year of the Republic of China, aiming at highlighting that the essence of universities lies in the study of academic theories. In Cai Yuanpei's view, "learning" and "technique" can be divided into two nouns. "Learning" is an academic theory and "technique" is an application. Arts and sciences are "learning", while law, business, medicine, industry and agriculture are all applications and "skills". Although learning and skills are closely related, learning is the foundation and skills are branches.
What is more commendable is that Cai Yuanpei further advocated "communicating arts and sciences" after seeing the disadvantages brought by the separation of arts and sciences. He said that arts and sciences can't be divided into subjects. The history and literature of liberal arts are related to science, and philosophy is based on natural science. Similarly, all disciplines of science are related to philosophy, and natural philosophy, especially the induction of natural science. Moreover, due to the interweaving of disciplines, some disciplines can hardly be distinguished by arts and sciences. Therefore, he advocates that the arts and sciences are interlinked and harmonious. 19 19, Peking university carried out reforms and abolished the boundaries between arts and sciences. The whole school set up 14 department, abolished seniors and set up department heads.
4. Teaching system-elective system
In connection with the dissemination of arts and sciences, Cai Yuanpei advocates the adoption of elective system in the teaching system. He believes that this system enables students to set up various related subjects in addition to specialization, which is conducive to breaking students' prejudice of "taking themselves as the center and protecting the disabled" and expanding their knowledge. Conducive to the free development of students' personality.
Regarding the implementation of the subject selection system, Cai Yuanpei believes that it is necessary to strengthen guidance. In order to prevent students from simply starting from interest and ignoring the study of basic theory and knowledge, he emphasized that the subjects chosen by students must be examined and approved by teachers, and students have only relative choices, but no absolute choices, except compulsory courses. At the same time, he also pointed out that the subject selection system can only be applied to colleges and universities, and general education can only adopt the spirit of subject selection, but not the subject selection system.
5. Administration-professors run the school.
Managing schools by professors is the basic idea of Cai Yuanpei's university management. He advocated that professors should govern the school in order to establish a democratic management system and prevent the headmaster from acting arbitrarily, which is the embodiment of his democratic thought. More importantly, it is necessary to rely on experts who really understand education and academics to manage the school. It can be seen that the democratic spirit and relying on experts are the two pillars of running a school advocated by Professor Cai Yuanpei. Professors are the main force of teaching and scientific research in schools. They know both education and learning, and Cai Yuanpei relies on them to manage the school. This not only completely reversed the situation that all school affairs in the old Peking University were decided by a few people, such as the president, but also greatly mobilized the enthusiasm and creativity of professors, forming a vivid situation of democratic school management.
To sum up, the basic characteristics of Cai Yuanpei's university education thought are democracy and science, with the aim of making the university a high-level teaching and research center. He not only laid a solid foundation for the formation of China's modern bourgeois university education theory, but also had many insights, such as attaching importance to the scientific research work of universities, advocating "freedom of thought and inclusiveness", paying attention to the development of students' personality, advocating "the integration of arts and sciences" and "paying equal attention to education and science".