Research On Family Education Of South-Fujian Immigrants To Taiwan In Qing Dynasty

Historically, it was recorded that Minnan( southern Fujian) people started immigrating to Taiwan as early as in the Tang and Song Dynasties, when some people spontaneously moved to Taiwan's Penghu Islands. While Han Chinese people began to move to Taiwan in a large number and reclaimed it in the Qing Dynasty, in which Taiwanese people become one of the main cultivating forces, and then took root there. With the increasing development of Taiwan and the development of social economy, these new immigrant families obtained a rapid reproduction and expansion. Taiwanese people gradually formed families after moving to Taiwan, though they mostly lived on Husbandry and farming when they just immigrated there. As soon as they settled, they began to attach great importance to their children's education. Taiwanese immigrants in the Qing Dynasty and before, were mostly from lower-middle class of society, led an impoverished life in their homeland with knowledge limited. while influenced by the original rural culture and education, they brought the Taiwanese traditional custom and cultural beliefs. Most of them focused on the children's education. Some were able to set up their own Colleges to invite the Mainland famous teachers, and some introduced the President to employ school-based education, in order to allow children access to education. Local Scholars also set schools in the family or the village temple. Thus, the family education of Minnan immigrants came into being in the Qing Dynasty.There are mainly such types of family education of Minnan immigrants in the form of school as community schools, free schools, private schools and academies while for non-school family education, there are Religious, sacrifice and ethnic culture education, family rules education. Minnan immigrants education existed mainly in private schools and developed differently in different counties such as Taipei, Taiwan, Tainan and Taidong. The forms of family education vary as different immigrant families, such as Family Cheng in Hsinchu set up Mingzhi(it means showing one's ideal) College for children's education, Family Lin in Panchiao set up free schools named Daguan( it means grand sight in English) for the children's education, and Family Zhangshi attached great importance to the civil service exam. These are all typical of quite successful cases.Minnan immigrants continued. Minnan immigrants' family education played a positive role for both individuals and the whole society in improving children's knowledge and self-cultivation, enhancing socio-economic status of the family, passing the Central Plains culture and traditions and promoting the formation of civilized society, but it also brought about the problems such as limiting thoughts, the civil service exam vassal, superficial and rigid teaching, irregular quality for teaching faculty. Family education of Taiwanese immigrants had the impact on Taiwan's society, which found expression mainly in continuing their original family heritage, promoting high value on learning, accelerating the social style enhancement and promoting the influential gentry class coming into being.