(1) "Persuade learning" is divided into internal articles and external articles. "Internal work should focus on correcting people's feelings", "External work should learn from others' strengths and open up the atmosphere", and the theme of the whole article is "Learning as the foundation, using western learning". The "middle school" mentioned in the article, that is, classics, history, philosophy and collection, Zhang Zhidong thinks that all aspects of "middle school" should be understood, but he emphasizes the "three cardinal guides" and thinks that the three cardinal guides and the five permanent members are the origin of middle school, which is mainly aimed at the bourgeois reform movement at that time. "Western learning" means "new learning", including western politics, western art and western history. Western history refers to the history of western countries; Western politics is not western politics, but some specific political facilities, such as school system and armament system. Western art refers to modern western science and technology. Zhang Zhidong advocated that primary schools should learn western languages first and then western politics; The university hall learns western politics first, and then western art.
Regarding the relationship between middle school and western learning, Zhang Zhidong believes that "middle school is the body, western learning is the use, and it cannot be neglected". Middle school is the noumenon, which plays a leading and guiding role; Western learning is the auxiliary of middle school and plays an auxiliary role.
In addition, Zhang Zhidong also put forward a series of specific educational reform strategies and measures, such as the idea of academic system, the reform of imperial examination system and the training of teachers. But these suggestions are based on "Chinese style".
To sum up, the basic idea is that education should first teach China the traditional study of classics and history, which is the basis of all learning and should be placed in a dominant position, and then learn useful things from western learning to make up for the shortcomings of middle schools.
(2) As the guiding ideology of Westernization education, the thought of "Chinese style and western use" later became the general program of China's semi-feudal and semi-colonial feudal education system. Despite its limitations, this educational proposition objectively promoted the development of modern education: ① It proved the usefulness of western learning in theory and promoted the spread of modern western learning in China. (2) Listing schools as the first place in western politics is conducive to quoting the western school system and educational theory and breaking the single and rigid traditional educational structure in China. (3) In the process of learning from the West, the capitalist social and political theory and the idea of democracy and equality in western society were introduced to China.
(3) Limitations: (1) The idea of "Chinese style and western style" was put forward mainly to safeguard the feudal rule of the whole Qing Dynasty, which hindered the spread of reform ideas in a wider scope to some extent and had a negative impact on the Enlightenment, which had just started in modern times. As the general purpose of education, the idea of "Chinese style and western learning" directly grafts middle school and western learning together, which will inevitably lead to the rejection between them.