A Study In The Science(1915-1949)

A nation’s scientific approaches, ideas, beliefs and spirits are closelybounded up to the destiny of the nation. After the Opium War, Chinese nationgradually comes to realize the fact and that the magazine could play anirreplaceable role in the aspect of disseminating scientific ideas andknowledge. Hence Chinese intellectuals began to found science journals fromthe late Qing Dynasty, such as, the Scientific World(1903), the ScienceMagazine (1907) etc. All of these journals were a flash in the pan and couldnot continue to develop further. However, Chinese nation had never stoppedthe pursuit of founding science journals. In1915, under the leadership of RenHongjun, Zhao Yuanren, Bing Zhi, Hu Mingfu, Zhou Ren, and Yang Quanwho had ever been studying in the United States, the Science was founded atexotic American Cornell University by them. With the returning of theScience Society in1918, The Science has taken roots and been growingdynamically until today.The Science is a scientific journal with a great influence on the Republicof China. Under the extremely hard and turbulent situations, it came intobeing, survived and developed with the ideal of “giving equal weigh to theessence of learning and truth-seeking”,“propagating the scientific knowledgeto the world as a flag”, which embodied young intellectuals’ the spirits ofpatriotism with salvation and hard work and demonstrated their bravery andintelligence. As an ideological front that transmits the latest scientificinformation, disseminates modern scientific knowledge, spreads advancedscientific ideas and methods, publishes research productions of Chinesepeople, and promotes the scientific spirits, the science has a great contributionto the development and fostering of scientific culture and genius. It has alsopassed on quite rich spiritual wealth to the descendants. According to thescience, we could look back at and introspect intellectuals’ attitudes, ideals, beliefs and spirits towards science, and could predict the future by reviewingthe past and gaining new insights by the window of the Science, we could alsoglimpse at the level of scientific research and growth in the republic of China.Meanwhile, it provides us with indispensable conditions of the study on thehistory of science in the republic of China.Although the Science was established by the students studying in theUnited States, owing to the social background and educational experiences offounders etc, it was paid more attention by the world scientific communitiesat the start of founding the Science. It not only offers Chinese scholarsscientific communication forum, but also translates and publishes a greatnumber of treatises done by the western and Japanese scholars. From thispoint of view, the Science recorded both the history of scientific developmentof China and the history of the world science. It belongs to China, and even tothe world.The Science came near to us, full of wars and hardships. Behind thepublishing of magazines, powerful editors and author groups were supportive,which embodied the power of an organized team wholly. The Scienceenlightened us that we must focus on the team concepts and team spirits in theprocess of scientific research and it is crucial to bring out the strength of theteam.The articles published in the Science cover a wide range of contentsincluding the latest research results of physical science and investigationabout scientific property, function, history, education and relations betweenscience and society. The latter is mainly focused on study in this dissertation.Based on the literature in the Science as the first-hand information, in abroad sense, a comprehensive and systematic analysis of procedure offounding the magazines, setting up columns and the thinking of the chiefeditors of the Science is made in the republic period. From the perspective oftime and space, view of science is reflected, which contained authors’ viewson scientific nature, spirit and methods. In terms of time, under the premise of respecting historical facts, great efforts are made to understand modernscientific thinking comprehensively and review the course of scientificconcepts longitudinally. In the case of space, the scientific concept isinvestigated horizontally with correspondent views of domestic and foreignscholars, which gives us a more overall understanding. Centering on thescience, research situation of the scientific history in the republic of China isdiscussed, and the research characters and methods of history of science inthat period are analyzed in the dissertation.This dissertation is divided into seven chapters as follows:The preface is introduced in the first chapter. Clearing the researchsubjects and contents, methods and thinking, then the research purpose,significance, the current situation in both the domestic and the foreign,innovation are clarified.The brief description on the development of the Science is given in thesecond chapter. The origin of the Science and an elaborate analysis to thefounding of the Science from1915to1950are introduced. It has been pointedout that establishing the magazine and changing the setup of columns arestudied, and the transformations of working styles during different chiefeditors’ periods are summarized.The scientific discussion about the Science is involved in the thirdchapter. There are four problems to be discussed: Firstly, what is science,speaking of science in the eyes of Chinese and the discussion of scientificconnotation in Science. Secondly, what is scientific spirit, What aboutscientists and scientific spirits? Thirdly, classification of the science isdiscussed. According to the two passages of the Classification of sciencewritten by Thomason and The classification of knowledge and the arena ofscience by Ren Hongjun, scientific classification ideas brought forward bypredecessors are interpreted. Fourthly, scientific methods are concluded. Bythe contrast of scientific methods in the Science, the conclusion is thatdeduction and induction have been emphasized by the scientific researchers. Science and Civilization are proposed in the fourth chapter. To beginwith, the dialectical relationship between science and peace is explored.Secondly, in the Science, there existed two points of the relationship betweenscience and industry, and the one is that “science is the mother of industry”while the other is that the relationship between science and industry is thesame as theory and practice, even action and reaction. Thirdly, the point onboosting development of farming by scientific approaches and specificapplication of science in the field of agriculture is revealed. Fourthly, thegrowth of science could promote advancement of society. Moreover, thesound social system could fuel scientific research as well.Science education in the Science is focused on in the fifth chapter. Firstly,the writers of the Science think that science education includes not only theteaching method of scientific knowledge, but also the broadcasting ofscientific methods and spirit. There existed some issues, such as thedeficiency of scientific books and instruments, the lack of number and qualityof teachers in the scientific education of the Republic, etc that needed to besolved urgently. Through the discussion about the deficiency among scienceeducation in primary and secondary schools, the appropriaterecommendations for improvement are proposed. At the same time, femalescientific education of ideal type of womanhood is set forth for encouragingwomen to support their husband and children better in the family life.Secondly, the ways of science education were composed of scientific teachingmethods and mathematics, geography and botany, etc. Thirdly, in fact scienceeducation with life styles should be improved. It is supposed to promotescience education with popular style, and finally science education ofsinicization is established rapidly.The study on history of science in the Science is conducted in the sixthchapter. To start with, it has a survey of essays relating to history ofMathematics and concludes that study on history of Mathematics has a featureof focusing on historical data and academic exchanges through written messages. Secondly, the investigation on astronomy in the Science extends thecontents involved in the history of astronomy and highlights the dispute onhistory of astronomy in ancient China between Sin jyou sin zou and Yi yi jimata dao. Thirdly, the current situation on the chemical history in the Science areelaborated. And the research subjects, ranges and methods among ZengZhaolun, Ding Xuxian, Wang Jin are also concentrated on. Fourthly, the aimis to obtain the characters of history of science.It comes to the conclusion in the last part. That the Science has apromoting function and vital influence on the current development of scienceis elaborated and the deficiencies of all work and the problems of furtheringresearch are shown.