Liang Shuming once said that Cai Yuanpei created a new trend for the Chinese people ideologically and academically, broke through the old customs and promoted the overall politics, which is very correct. It is precisely because of Mr. Cai's inclusiveness and freedom of thought that the new culture has a foothold, Peking University has become a fortress of the new culture movement, and scientific and democratic ideas have been spread. Therefore, in this sense, Cai Yuanpei is not only the founder of modern Peking University, but also the founder of the concept and spirit of modern universities in China.
Cai Yuanpei, as an outstanding pioneer in China's modern cultural circles, his famous cultural thoughts and academic views had an important influence on the historical process of China. Cai Yuanpei's academic thought of "inclusiveness" put forward when he was the president of Peking University has not only become an important guiding ideology for him to preside over the education work of Peking University, but also a principle he adhered to in running a school. After this idea was put forward, a group of representatives of new cultures and new ideas entered Peking University, which became the highest institution with active thoughts and academic prosperity in China. Therefore, the idea of "all-inclusive" played a positive role in accepting new culture and opposing feudal culture. Cai Yuanpei's contribution to education and aesthetics is obvious to all, but his contribution to ethnology is little known. Cai Yuanpei said in his own chronicle that one of his dreams is to write a book "Comparative Ethnology" to "study ethnology to death".
When Cai Yuanpei went to Beijing and entered the palace for an exam, he elaborated on Tibet's "vast territory and abundant resources, connected by mountains and rivers" in the "Strategic Issues on Tibet".
190 1 year, Cai Yuanpei said in On School Education: "In the past, history only remembered the things of emperors, but not the customs of people's livelihood, so that the ups and downs of strong and weak people were endless."
1908-1911studying philosophy, literature, civilization history and ethnology at the university of Leipzig, Germany.
1August, 924, attended the 2nd1General Assembly of the International Society for Nationalities. 1924165438+10 to1926 February, majoring in ethnology, University of Hamburg, Germany.
From 1926 to 1934, Cai Yuanpei published articles such as On Ethnology, Ethnology and Sociology, and Evolutionary Views in Ethnology.
1927 When the Academia Sinica was founded, Cai Yuanpei hoped to set up an ethnology research institute, but this hope was not realized due to limited human and material resources.
1928, the institute of social sciences was established, and Cai Yuanpei set up an ethnology group in the institute as the team leader and researcher. The following research is carried out in ethnology group. Investigation and research on Yao nationality in Lingyun, Guangxi: investigation and research on Gaoshan nationality in Taiwan Province Province: investigation and research on Hezhe nationality in the lower reaches of Songhua River: research on knotting notes and original characters of all nationalities in the world: As a trend of thought, The Collection of Research Materials on Southwest Ethnic Minorities sprouted before the May 4th Movement and flourished in the 1920s. Due to the warlord melee, economic depression and the neglect of education by Beiyang government, the proportion of education funds in the national budget is extremely low. For example, about 1920, the national budget for education only accounts for about 1.2%. Limited budget funds are often embezzled and misappropriated, which can not be fully put in place, resulting in a shortage of education funds and unsustainable education.
Cai Yuanpei has always regarded education as the basic way to save the country and respected the freedom of thought and scholarship. In addition, as the president of Peking University, he deeply felt that government bureaucrats were constraining and undermining education. Therefore, he is an active advocate and supporter of educational independence and guides it in theory. 1922 published "On Educational Independence" in New Education in March, expounding the basic viewpoints and methods of educational independence, which became an important chapter in the ideological trend of educational independence.
He believes that the opposition between political parties and education is as follows:
Education should develop people's personalities and groups in a balanced way, but political parties are not. It should create a special group to serve the Party and obliterate the personality of the educated.
(2) Education has a far-reaching impact, focusing on the future, and its effect can not be revealed in a short time, so there is a saying of "educating people for a hundred years". Political parties, on the other hand, are eager for quick success and instant benefit, and often only consider immediate interests.
(3) Under the background of party politics, regime change between different political parties and between political parties in charge of education will inevitably affect the stability of educational policies and the effectiveness of education. Therefore, he believes that education should be divorced from all political parties.
In order to realize the real independence of education, Cai Yuanpei designed specific measures for the independence of education funds, education administration and education from religion. Among them, the plan of educational administration independence is: the whole country is divided into several university districts, and each district has a university. Higher specialized education, primary and secondary education, social education and cultural and academic affairs in the region are organized and handled by this university. University affairs are presided over by the Education Committee composed of university professors, and the president is elected by the Education Committee. The university presidents of each university district form a higher education conference to handle the affairs of each university district. The Ministry of Education is only responsible for dealing with the affairs related to the central government and the education statistics report decided by the higher education conference, and does not interfere in the affairs of the university area. The chief education officer must be approved by the higher education conference. This thought became the framework of Nanjing National Government's early implementation of the "university district system". 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. "
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. 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.
Put forward the background
Shortly after the victory of the Revolution of 1911, the Nanjing Provisional Government was put forward just after its establishment. In order to make the bourgeois reform of feudal education develop in depth 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".
Military national education
(1) From the external environment, China is in a state of "strong neighbor, 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".
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.
Civic moral education
He compared the moral concept of "freedom, equality and fraternity" of the western modern bourgeoisie to "righteousness, forgiveness and benevolence" advocated by ancient Confucianism in China. He advocates absorbing foreign culture extensively, and at the same time, "we must choose people who can digest it" and "we must assimilate it with' I', not with each other". He criticized some people with weak aspirations who "gave up donating their" me "and assimilated it with outsiders" when studying abroad.
World outlook education
World outlook education is based on the idealistic world outlook that divides the world into the phenomenal world and the substantive world, and requires people to follow the principle of freedom of thought and speech and not be bound by a certain theory. At that time, it had the liberation function of breaking thousands of years of ideological dictatorship.
aesthetic education
Aesthetic education is the most important way to carry out world outlook education, and it is the only bridge that people must pass from the phenomenon world to the entity world. The importance of aesthetic education stems from its characteristics. There are only two obstacles for people to move from the phenomenon world to the real world. One is the difference between people and me, and the other is the pursuit of happiness.