Chen Zai 1933 became attached to independent reviews. On March 26th this year, the 43rd issue of Independent Review published his China and Educational Modernization. This is an important treatise of Chen in the dispute between Chinese and western culture and education, and it is also in the same strain as his westernization theory. Even after nearly 70 years, we still feel cordial when we reread this article, because the theory refuted by Chen still exists, and the problem of China's educational modernization has not been solved. Our university education has no tradition and is not really in line with modernization. If the policy is changed again, the departments may split or merge. I don't know when I can really establish a complete and reasonable education system.

Independent Review was founded on May 22nd, 1932, initiated by Hu Shi, Jiang Tingfu and Ding Wenjiang. Hu Shi said that the monthly magazine "does not rely on any party, does not believe in any prejudice, and publishes the results of our personal thinking with responsible remarks" in order to "arouse social attention and discussion".

1932 1 1 The Independent Review published the autumn and spring newsletter on the responsibility of education collapse. Qiu, a student of the College of Education of Columbia University, is a famous education expert in China. Later, he was a professor and head of the Department of Education at National Southwest Associated University. In view of Fu Sinian's article "The Reasons for the Collapse of Education", he criticized China graduate students from the Institute of Education of Columbia University, and Qiu Wen made a counter-criticism. He pointed out that China's new education was originally copied from Japan, and later imitated from France. In recent three or four years, the educational circles in China have realized the mistake of pure plagiarism and advocated Chinese education. At that time, many politicians and scholars advocated the so-called China, rural and professional education. Chen believes that all these are against the trend of educational modernization, so he wrote the article "China and Modernization of Education", but it was never published.

Xu Sheng's Theory of Educational Crimes has tens of thousands of words and is published in Independent Review in six chapters. Xu (1888 ~ 1976) was born in tanghe county, Henan. 1906, he went to Beijing, was admitted to Beijing-Henan Public Travel School, and went to Beijing Translation Institute to study French. 19 13 went to Paris university to specialize in philosophy at public expense. 1965438+returned to China in 2009. 192 1 was employed as a professor of philosophy department of Peking University. 1926 was hired as the dean of Peking University to assist President Cai Yuanpei in charge of Peking University. From 65438 to 0927, he served as the captain of the northwest scientific expedition of China, and cooperated with Dr. Swindin of Sweden to inspect Xinjiang. 65438-0929 Dean of Women's Teachers College of National Peking University. 193 1 was appointed president of the national Beiping normal university. The following year, he concurrently served as the director of Beijing Institute of History. After 1949, he became a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology, China Academy of Sciences.

Xu wrote The Crime of Education. After he left the post of President of National Beiping Normal University, the first five articles were critical, pointing out the disadvantages of current education in China. The sixth part is the construction, and puts forward its own educational reform plan. Chen was "very happy and sympathetic" after reading the first five articles, but he was "very disappointed" when he saw the sixth article (published in Independent Review on February 38 1933). It turns out that Xu's plan is to advocate rural education in China. Chen couldn't help it, so he took out his old articles and submitted them to Independent Review for publication.

Chen wrote in the "Author's Note": "My original intention is that if China's education is rural as Mr. Xu Sheng said, then this rural area is still modern and western; This is by no means and should not be the inherent development of rural areas in China. In fact, the rural movement recently advocated by China people was originally a response of modern westerners to the abnormal development of cities. This rural movement is still a matter for westerners in rural areas, not for rural areas in China. If it is, then the education in China for thousands of years is rural, and we don't need to shout and advocate. " Because the article was written nearly a year ago, it was not aimed at Xu Sheng, but his own views on the modernization of education in China. He believes that "this is the most important issue of education in China". Hu Shi added "Editor's Note" when editing this article, which shows that he attaches great importance to it.

Chen's view of China's educational modernization is based on his cultural and chemical framework. He said: "Because of the limited mental time, people have to classify cultures so that they can specialize in a certain subject or category." So some are called education, some are called politics, some are called religion, economy and so on. However, culture itself does not have such a classification. She is a complex whole and inseparable. The so-called separation is nothing more than a subjective function of our understanding of things. Culture itself is inseparable. On the one hand, fluctuations will inevitably lead to other influences. Because of this, the new education in China or the modernization of education in China are closely related to other aspects of culture. "

Those who advocate China-oriented education have a grandiose reason, that is, China has its own inherent national conditions, and education should conform to China's national conditions, so it must be China-oriented. Chen severely criticized this view. He said: "The newly educated China is indeed the popular slogan of educators in recent years, and it is also a very common concept in China ... However, as a result, in my personal opinion, China education is in great danger of moving towards the retro movement again." The reason is very simple: "The original new education, as people engaged in this sport said, is not the education inherent in China, but something imported from the outside, so the education inherent in China is of course the old education. Old education is the product of the old times. New education is the product of the new era. If the new era needs new education, so does China in the new era. In other words, it is a new era or modernization of education in China. "

The so-called "national conditions" theory prevailed in the Chen era and is still heard today. When it comes to modernization and world trends, some people will throw this theory as a shield. Chen made a strong counterattack against this theory from the cultural point of view. He said: "We must first ask, what is the national condition? Although the term national conditions can include all natural, climatic, geographical, natural products, ethnic-and cultural conditions, it can only be said that it actually refers to culture. " "National conditions refer specifically to culture, and education is nothing more than a part of many parts of culture. Because she is a part of culture, or on the one hand, she is not only closely related to culture, but also dominated by it. Therefore, if you want to have a fairly comprehensive understanding of education, you must understand the relationship between culture and education and the domination of culture on education. " "They forget that China today is very different from China 60 years ago. China's current national conditions are actually not inherent in China. Moreover, these national conditions are moving towards a new era. We can say that in the process from the national conditions of old China to the national conditions of China in the new era, China's inherent national conditions have gradually become and will become a thing of the past. "

China's modernization is the general development trend, as are education, politics and economy. Just because we have not reached the standard of modernization, we should speed up the pace and catch up; Advocating the so-called "new education in China" is actually an attempt to stop the trend of educational modernization. Chen pointed out: "They have forgotten not only education, but also economy and politics, which are also in the process of modernization. If educators don't want to modernize education, but want to adapt new education to old politics, economy, or ethics in the process of transformation, the results produced by these things or the heritage passed down, why don't we concentrate on preserving old education and other cultures to safeguard our inherent national conditions, but make it more complicated and adopt new education, which will be futile. "

It was only more than 30 years ago that China adopted a new education system. However, the starting point of China's educational modernization dates back to 60 years ago, that is, 1872, when Yung Wing led the first group of young children to study in the United States. Rong Hong's plan to study in the United States was aborted because of the obstruction of conservative and stubborn forces. 1876, Chen Lanbin was appointed as the ambassador to the United States, Wu Zideng was appointed as the supervisor of studying abroad, and Yung Wing was excluded, so these young children studying abroad were forced to evacuate to China. Hong Rong wrote in "The Introduction of Western Learning to the East": "The purpose of pushing him (Chen Lanbin) must be his pure and flawless education in China. Since he came to the United States, he has been polluted by contact with foreign education." Obviously, the withdrawal of young children studying in the United States is the first major setback for China's educational modernization.

After that, it was not until 1902 after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the Boxer Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China that China began to abolish stereotyped writing, set up schools, and then sent overseas students abroad. This time, most international students went to Japan, and most of them were crash courses. "In this way, most students studying in Japan can not only enjoy direct western education, but also enjoy indirect Japanese education." The reason is that Chen believes that "the conservatism of the government and the people and the so-called reform are the biggest obstacles." Needless to say, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang's service-oriented machine education, such as Zhang Zhidong's thought of taking middle school as the body and western learning as the application, is especially the main reason for making big mistakes. "

At that time, most people thought that education in China was Americanized, but Chen didn't think so. He said: "We thought that if China's education was seriously Americanized, then China's education would never be so bad." He said that a person studying in the United States for ten years may not be able to keep up with Americans, and it is absolutely unrealistic to completely americanize China's education within ten years.

In this article, Chen once again shows the spirit of a newborn calf. He even criticized some celebrities in the political and cultural circles at that time: "People who advocate spiritual culture are of course skeptical about accepting western education in an all-round way, so recently, people such as Zou Haibin (Lu) and Chen advocated stopping liberal arts and law courses and developing vocational education exclusively, which only shows that our understanding of modernization is not thorough. Let's imagine that liberal arts, law and other disciplines will be closed in the initial stage, but only vocational education will be advocated. Isn't it the way of Zeng Guopan and Li Hongzhang? "

Finally, Chen clearly put forward his own proposition: "All cultures in China should be completely modernized, and all education in particular should be completely modernized. This is true of vocational education, and so is general education. This is true of low-level education, and so is higher education. This is true of urban education, and so is rural education. Only modern education can be called living education. Only modern education can be called life education. Only modern education can be called new education. "

Chen, who held this view, was not isolated at that time. Before and after the publication of China and Education Modernization, the Independent Review also published Wu Jingchao's Urban Education and Rural Education and Jiang Menglin's exposition on several basic principles in the Report of the League of Nations Education Investigation Team. Their views are similar to Chen's.