The private legal education in modern China experienced a transformation from prohibition to permission, which broke the autocratic monopoly system of government-run legal education and made contributions to the development of legal education in this period. From scratch, it emerged in large numbers and soon spread all over the country, forming its own school-running concept in adapting to the objective requirements of social development. The era significance of his school-running thought mainly includes three aspects: first, the change of the concept of school-running subject; Second, the education system is complete; The third is the improvement of teaching content and form. In the process of its tortuous development, some identifiable values and characteristics have been formed, which enlightens us to further understand some basic contradictions and problems in the process of modernization of legal education.
Keywords modern China; Private legal education; School-running concept; modernization
The traditional education in China has always been the coexistence of official and private education, and the university education in modern China still inherited this tradition. However, modern legal education in China was once monopolized by government-run schools in the late Qing Dynasty, and it was only after the constitutional situation was urgent that it was banned. As far as modern private legal education in China is concerned, it experienced a change from prohibition to permission. Private legal education grew out of nothing, then emerged in large numbers and soon spread all over the country. Although the autocratic monopoly system of government-run legal education was broken, it added a new form to the main body of modern legal education in China, was a supplement to government-run legal education, and contributed to the development of legal education in this period, but it goes without saying that its development showed a trend of flooding and had some negative effects. This paper intends to discuss the development of private legal education in modern China from the perspective of school-running concept, and summarize its positive and negative historical experiences and lessons.
First, the concept of private legal education in modern China.
Modern new law education in China developed with the reform of legal system. In the legal reform in the late Qing Dynasty, in order to meet the urgent needs of social development, the Qing government had to closely combine the cultivation of legal talents with legal reform and began to cultivate legal talents with the ideas and methods of western bourgeois legal education. However, in its initial stage, private legal education was not included in the permitted scope of the Qing court policy. The educational syllabus of 1904 clearly stipulates that "private schools are forbidden to specialize in politics and law". It was not until 19 10 that the Qing court explicitly approved and promoted the establishment of private schools of law and politics. Since then, private schools of political science and law have spread all over the country from scratch, and formed their own school-running ideas to meet the objective requirements of social development.
First of all, it aims to cultivate legal and political expertise and make full use of it. At that time, people thought that "the members' self-governing personnel had no knowledge of law and politics, were not competent for the work of judges, and needed a lot of talents, so it was a bit narrow to rely solely on official studies". Therefore, it was necessary to open up new channels, expand the scale of running schools, and then train a large number of talents with legal expertise to enter the legislative, judicial, law enforcement and administrative departments. In this context, in 19 10, the Ministry of Education recalled the governor of Zhejiang Province and allowed private schools to specialize in politics and law. In the same year, in order to further meet the needs of the development of the constitutional situation, the Ministry of Education revised the general meaning of the school of law and politics, and changed the previous "training officials, learning political knowledge of Chinese and foreign laws and making full use of them" [2] to "training specialized legal knowledge and making full use of it". [3] The adjustment of the training purpose not only broke through the limitation of "building officials" and expanded the enrollment targets, but also changed "researching and refining Chinese and foreign legal and political knowledge" to "cultivating specialized legal knowledge", which obviously emphasized the application of legal and political school education more than before.
Second, learn from the Japanese legal education model and go hand in hand with government-run law schools. 19 10, the constitution of the Law and Politics School was revised by the Ministry of Education. Although it was clearly stated that "Article 31 of the Constitution of the Law and Politics School was revised with reference to the education systems of various countries", neither the curriculum system nor the teaching contents embodied in its curriculum were copied from Japan, and this situation did not change much until the early Republic of China. In order to clean up the private legal and political education, it is not only stipulated in the chapter "Resignation, Rehabilitation and Flexibility of Zhejiang Province by the Ministry of Education" that "all courses and student enrollment levels shall be handled in accordance with the undergraduate charter of the official legal and political school", but also stated in the chapter "Revision of the Charter of the Legal and Political School by the Ministry of Education" that the newly established private legal and political schools outside Beijing shall be handled in accordance with this revision.
Third, to meet the objective needs of the changing times, the level and scale of running a school should be adapted to the times. In the book "Readings Adapted from Zhejiang Provincial Department", in order to prevent the disadvantages of "simplification and quick success", it is clearly put forward that private schools of law and politics should be attached to other subjects, but no specialties should be set up. However, after a lapse of half a year, faced with the actual dilemma that the number of middle school graduates was too small at that time, it was difficult to run the normal subjects in various legal and political schools. In order to meet the temporary needs, the department thinks that "after the number of middle school graduates increases in the future, the provisions of other subjects should be abolished,&; Uml, we made timely adjustments. In the second year of the Republic of China, "law and politics colleges all over the country have added other subjects to recruit new students, often hundreds." "To test its content, there is a proper name in a large rate, and there is no specificity." In order to curb the occurrence of abuses, the department strictly prohibits the recruitment of freshmen from other disciplines. In the same year, the Ministry of Education also consulted the opinions of the provinces, and strictly ordered that "all private specialized schools of law and politics outside the province that are not prosperous commercial ports, have sufficient funds, are legally handled, and are not abused, should ask your Minister of Civil Affairs to take into consideration the situation and order them to close down or change them into legal workshops." By strengthening supervision and management, some unqualified private political and legal schools have been closed.
Fourth, appropriately relax the location of running schools and use unified examination and approval textbooks. 19 10, at the beginning of the lifting of the ban, in order to facilitate supervision, referring to the Japanese practice, the Qing court limited the location of running a private school of law and politics to the provincial capital. However, after less than half a year, in view of the fact that "according to the list compiled year by year by the compilation and inspection office in the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu, it is necessary to establish trial offices at all levels in provincial capitals and commercial ports in the third year. Therefore, for trading ports, the use of judicial talents is as important as that of provincial capitals, so private schools of law and politics should be limited to provincial capitals and promoted appropriately. It is stipulated that "all places with prosperous commercial ports, convenient transportation, sufficient funds and complete courses are allowed to petition for the establishment of legal and political schools for extensive training." [7] At the same time, based on the judgment that "schools of law and politics in different countries have their own systems, and they must compromise on one thing, so that Du Qi can fawn on the regime", the Ministry plans to take handouts from various subjects of Shi Jing Law School and Shi Jing Law School, "carefully selected, properly examined and published, so as to study the ending trend and remain unified in the process of making changes. "[8] While lifting the ban on private law and political schools, it is envisaged to manage them by publishing unified teaching materials.
The school-running concept of modern private law education in China embodies the demand for new legal talents in social transformation. Because private legal and political education itself is developed in the contradictory movement in the transitional society, its concept of running a school inevitably contains some contradictions that cannot be completely solved, and the abnormal prosperity of private legal and political education is its external manifestation.
Second, the era significance of the idea of private legal education in modern China.
The education of any era and specific society is the product of this era and specific society. Writing a Graduation Thesis China's modern private legal education is no exception. The idea of running a school is to meet and adapt to the needs of the times and society as much as possible. It can be said that it is not only the product of social and historical development, but also an integral part of it. The emergence and development of modern private legal education in China is not only reflected in the increase and expansion of new legal education, but also in the significance of its school-running philosophy. Specifically, the significance of his school-running thought mainly includes three aspects: first, the change of the concept of school-running subject; Second, the education system is complete; The third is the improvement of teaching content and form.
In the Outline of Academic Affairs of 1904, the Qing government, for the purpose of saving its endangered political rule, on the one hand affirmed the importance of studying foreign laws and opposed the view that the lack of political science and law in schools would lead to the gradual development of freedom and civil rights; On the other hand, he "feared that students would despise the authority of the emperor and insist on their rights regardless of the seriousness", and tried his best to vilify people for talking about civil rights and freedom, and strictly ordered that "Yu Junyi should pay attention to ordinary industries except universities in the capital and institutions of higher learning established in the provincial capital." Its private schools are not allowed to teach political and legal majors to prevent the abuse of empty talk and fallacies. The Minister of Education negotiates with the provinces to effectively investigate the ban. Legal education is completely monopolized by the government, and private participation is excluded. [ 10]
However, under the impetus of the New Deal, the sail of legal education reform has been raised high, and no force can stop it. The history of the transitional society forced the Qing government to make changes. 1907 10, soon after the imperial edict of Qing dynasty set up an advisory bureau in the central government, it also ordered the provinces to set up an advisory bureau in the provincial capital and prepare the county Council in advance. Then, on July 22, 1908,1promulgated article 62 of the statute of the consultative conference and article l 15 of the statute of the election of members of the consultative conference, ordering all provinces to set up consultative conferences within one year. The rapid development of the New Deal requires breaking the autocratic monopoly system of government-run legal education and banning civil legal education to meet the extensive demand for new legal talents in social change. Therefore, in 1909, the governor of Zhejiang increased his visit to Beijing, demanding that the ministerial regulations be amended to allow private schools to specialize in law and politics. 19 10 the Ministry of education replied that "private schools in all provinces specialize in law and politics, attach importance to constitutionalism and have extensive education." [1 1] Since then, the monopoly of official centralization of legal and political education in modern China has been completely broken, and the subjects of running schools have become diversified.
The Qing government changed from prohibiting private schools from specializing in politics and law to explicitly allowing private schools to run political and law schools, which not only added new forms to the main body of running schools, but also brought about a change in the concept of running schools. More importantly, the change of the concept of running a school has also promoted the improvement of the education system to a certain extent, and the layout, level and structure of law education have become increasingly complex and diverse. At the beginning of banning private schools of politics and law, although it was stipulated that the opening place should be limited to the provincial capital, this rule was soon broken. Private schools of political science and law expanded to include prosperous commercial ports and convenient transportation, and government-run and private schools of political science and law quickly spread all over the country. 19 13, 15 In Jiangsu Province alone, public and private universities and specialized political and legal schools have been established with 4,742 students. There are 13 private universities and specialized law and politics schools. [ 12]
In order to cooperate with the development of legal and political education, in 19 10, referring to the educational systems of various countries, the Ministry of Education drew up the revised statutes of legal and political schools and promulgated a set of specific programs for legal and political education. There are two branches: the main branch and other branches. The main branch is divided into three branches: law, politics and economy, all of which graduated in four years. Graduated in three years, regardless of subjects. If there are too few students, it is not allowed to open two courses at the same time, and it is allowed to open one course first. Students majoring in science must have a technical secondary school diploma before they can enter the school. Students in other subjects, who have been employed, promoted, educated and supervised, are over 25 years old, have good conduct and a solid foundation in middle school, and can enter the school only after passing the examination. The number of students at each level is determined according to local conditions, but at least 100 students at each level. [13] The formulation of the policy of political and legal education with both government and private affairs has, to a certain extent, reversed the narrow situation of political and legal education in the past and promoted the great development of legal education.
The improvement of education system requires the corresponding improvement of teaching content, and its efforts are to further standardize the curriculum of professional teaching and improve the level of running schools. From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, all ministries (the Ministry of Education) reformed the original courses with the times, added new courses, and made detailed provisions on the courses that should be offered in law courses. 19 10 clearly stipulates: "the constitution of the previously established school of law and politics shall be revised in three aspects: one-day courses. At the time of writing, all kinds of new laws were not promulgated, so there was no domestic law to teach except the Qing codes and regulations. Today's constitutional outline, court preparation law, local autonomy regulations, etc. It has been promulgated one after another, and the new criminal law will be finalized in a few days, and it will be implemented by decree. From then on, the curriculum of political science and law schools should be based on China laws, which should be changed. " Under its law course, there is a special note: "Civil law, commercial law, litigation and other laws are temporarily compared with foreign law professors. Once the domestic laws are edited, they will be taught according to their own laws. " It was not until the Republic of China that the Ministry of Education put forward the educational aim of "specialized schools teach advanced scholarship and cultivate specialized talents" for the first time in the Regulations of Specialized Schools promulgated in 19 12, stipulating that "students in specialized schools must have graduated from secondary schools or have the same academic ability through experiments" and completely positioned the specialized schools of law and politics as institutions of higher learning. At the same time, in Article 10 of the Constitution of Legal and Political Specialized Schools promulgated by the Ministry of Education in the same year, the compulsory courses of law are defined as: Constitution, administrative law, Roman law, criminal law, civil law, commercial law, bankruptcy law, criminal procedure law, civil procedure law, public international law, private international law and foreign languages; Elective courses of law are defined as criminal policy, legal history, comparative legal history, finance and jurisprudence. Although the law education at this time is still in the stage of imitation and introduction, it is obviously more mature than the previous curriculum design.
Third, the historical reflection of private legal education in modern China.
In the transformation from traditional law education in China to modern law education, the emergence and development of private law education in modern China undoubtedly played a very important role. Its tortuous development has formed some recognizable values and characteristics, which enlightens us to further understand some basic contradictions and problems in the process of modernization of legal education. Specifically, there are:
First of all, legal education should not become a simple vassal of politics and a practical tool serving short-term political goals. Education is different from politics, and writing a master's thesis is subordinate to politics. It can be said that the legal education system of any country can not be separated from the social and political system of this country. The development history of modern private legal education in China not only reflects the changing history of modern legal fate in China, but also reflects the evolution of modern political system in China. At the beginning of the "New Deal", in the view of the rulers of the Qing court, "Gai science has practical skills, politics and law are easy to talk about, and the most important thing is anti-counterfeiting." Therefore, private schools of political science and law "are not allowed to teach political science and law majors to prevent the abuse of empty talk and fallacies." It was not until 19 10 that the ban was restricted because the constitutionalism was in urgent need of new legal talents. Obviously, the development of modern new law education in China is not only the result of the development of education itself, but also influenced by political factors. At the beginning of the development of legal education, the Qing government linked the establishment of legal education with political stability, obeyed the needs of political development, paid insufficient attention to the value and characteristics of legal education itself, and ignored its development independence. This led to the fact that the new legal education in modern China was infected with the virus of political supremacy from the beginning, and it has been lurking in its body, playing a destructive role to varying degrees, seriously restricting the healthy development of legal and political education, and making the new legal education in modern China a deformed child with congenital deficiency in its production stage. The reason why the modernization of modern legal education in China showed poverty and naivety can be said to be one of the root causes.
Secondly, the formal imitation of the modernization reform of modern legal education in China caused by the time gap does not mean that we realize the true connotation of modern western legal education. The modernization of modern legal education in China is not the self-evolution of traditional society, but the integration of western legal culture and China traditional legal culture. Starting from the solidified cultural psychology, feelings and concepts, China's traditional legal culture will inevitably produce some resistance to western legal culture. In the new legal education, it is often the shackles of feudal ideas that keep me unchanged. "New legal education" only cultivates "new talents" with new skills and old ideas. For example, the Ministry of Academic Affairs grants private schools the right to specialize in law and politics. The academic departments of the Qing Dynasty clearly put forward that "what you learn must correspond to politics" and that "to establish a constitutional monarchy, all legal systems must be implemented after they are suitable for the country, and there must be no drawbacks, which is the metaphor that emphasizes legal and political scholars." [15] Obviously, the host of China's new education did not really understand the essence of modern western legal education, but tried to imitate the western legal education system with the deduction of "deal with a man as he deals with you" in order to eliminate internal troubles and foreign invasion. This makes the modern legal education in China, which was produced in the tribulation, fall into a rich, diverse and superficial predicament, and finally it is difficult to form a strict legal education system suitable for China's national conditions.
Third, without clear value goals and lofty educational ideals, the development of legal education will lose its meaning and direction. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, in order to meet the needs of the country's transition from autocracy to constitutionalism, and then build a harmonious society, private schools of law and politics quickly spread all over the country, and a prosperous scene of studying law and politics appeared all over the country. However, the increase in quantity and the improvement in quality have not been achieved at the same time. According to the survey of the Ministry of Education 19 13, a large number of private political and legal colleges are mostly set up to cater to people looking for new jobs. "The content of the exam has a special name, but there is no special reality. The founder regards it as a business field, while scholars regard it as a hunting official, which is full of drawbacks and extremely worrying. [16] Some private schools of political science and law have completely deviated from the constitution of political science and law schools formulated by the Ministry of Education and become "educational factories" that lose their souls and see benefits instead of people.
Fourthly, the abnormal prosperity of private colleges of political science and law leads to the structural imbalance of educational settings. Since the establishment and popularization of private schools of law and politics in the late Qing Dynasty, the number of private schools has remained high since the Republic of China, and writing doctors has become a disaster. Huang Yanpei said in the article "Reading Recent Education Statistics in the Republic of China": "In the early years of the Republic of China, the country suddenly broke away from autocracy and created harmony, and the society was very interested in politics; For a time, there were political and legal schools all over the country, and there were as many as 89 provincial capitals, which were included in government statistics, only part of them. " According to the survey in the second year of the Republic of China, there were 13 private law and politics schools in Jiangning, Suzhou, Shanghai, Zhenjiang and Qingjiang. In this regard, he shouted: "Compared with the students of law and politics schools, there are less than one tenth of the students in each school." [17] This over-prosperous development trend of private specialized schools of political science and law naturally hindered the coordinated and balanced development of all kinds in the whole education system at this time, and brought about a relative surplus of political science and law talents. At the same time, this abnormal ratio masks another unreasonable phenomenon. According to the statistics (19 16 August l9l7 July), Jilin, Heilongjiang, Anhui, Shaanxi, Gansu, Chahar and other provinces have set up higher education in name according to the new academic system, but in fact only one special law and politics school has been set up, resulting in a serious imbalance in regional distribution. The unreasonable development of this educational structure will inevitably have a negative impact on the all-round development of social culture in some areas. In the long run, it will lead to a vicious circle and long-term social instability. Super secretary network
Fifth, in backward countries seeking rapid modernization, legal education must coordinate the relationship between development scale and comprehensive national strength. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, private legal education flocked to meet the demand for talents in the political system that changed from feudal monarchy to democratic politics. But at this time, due to the weak comprehensive national strength, teachers, students, funds, equipment and school buildings and other supporting conditions can not keep up. The actual situation of private law education is that "ordinary schools have no basic funds and only rely on tuition income to support schools", "teachers are not enough, students' level is very poor, professors have no grades, students fill in at will, students come and go, and teaching is often absent, which is really perfunctory", [18] The quality of education is not guaranteed. 19 13 years, although the Ministry of Education consulted the provinces to stop private law and politics schools or set up seminars as appropriate, it did not play an obvious inhibitory role. According to the standard of a sound society ruled by law, this situation is extremely dangerous, because legal mistakes may lead to disastrous results. [ 19]
In all fairness, the modern private law education in China not only adapted and promoted the modern development of law education in China, but also had problems of restriction and lag. In this dual effect, adaptation is undoubtedly greater than limitation. Compared with the unified situation of government-run legal education, the problems existing in private legal education in modern China have always been a great progress. This can be proved by the fact that China's modern legal education has made great progress in the extremely turbulent social environment. It can be said that the wave of modern legal education in China, surging and competing, broadened the vision of China education and promoted the development of China's new educational practice and theory. The emergence and development of modern private legal education in China tells us that the legal education system should be gradually improved in practice, and its modernization is a long and difficult historical process.
refer to
[1] [8] [I1] [15] The Ministry of Education deliberated and restored the flexible chapter of Zhejiang Province, allowing private schools to learn law [A]. Zhu Youli Historical materials of modern academic system in China (Volume II) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 65438+.
[2] Shen Xuan, the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the left assistant minister of the Ministry of Justice, invited the Institute of Management (attached articles of association) [A], Zhu Youli. Historical materials of modern academic system in China (Volume II) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1983: 47 1.
[3][4][ 13] Amend the Constitution of the Department of Law and Politics [A]. Zhu Youli Historical materials of modern academic system in China (Volume II) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press,1983: 493,492,493.
[5] Order of the Ministry of Education on restricting enrollment of other subjects in law and politics schools [A]. Zhu Youli Historical Materials of Modern Academic System in China (Volume III) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1983: 6 13.
[6] The Ministry of Education asked the private colleges of political science and law in all provinces to suspend or change to workshops [A]. Zhu Youli Historical Materials of Modern Academic System in China (Volume III) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1983: 6 15.
[7] A film promoting private law and political schools is attached to the Ministry [A]. Zhu Youli Historical materials of modern academic system in China (Volume II) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press,1983: 491&; mdash492.
[9] Fei Zhengqing, Liu. Cambridge History of China in the Late Qing Dynasty (Volume II) [M]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 1985: 442.
[10][ 14] Cecilia Cheung, Rong Qing, Zhang Zhidong. Academic project [A]. Shuxin city China modern education history data (I) [C]. Beijing: People's Publishing House,1981:206,206.
[12][ 17] Huang Yanpei. Dangerous educational future phenomenon [A]. Zhu Youli Historical Materials of Modern Education System in China (Volume III) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1990:656656.
[16] The Ministry of Education has consulted the provincial private colleges of political science and law to suspend or change to workshops as appropriate [A]. Zhu Youli Historical Materials of Modern Education System in China (Volume III) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1990: 6 15.
[18] 19 13 The Ministry of Education sent personnel to check the results of private legal affairs [A]. Zhu Youli Historical Materials of Modern Academic System in China (Volume III) [C]. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, 1990: 647.
[19] Yang Zhenshan. Research on the Evolution of Law Education in China [J]. Politics and Law Forum. 2000，(4)。
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