The Study On Critical Review School

Critical Review was established in 1922 and ended in 1933, a period of 12 years that boasted the most active of the Critical Review School. Critical Review School first came into attention when its advocators expressed criticism of the varieties of extremist ideas in the New Culture Movement. It was its distinct views from those of the New Youth School that offered the first impetus to Critical Review, and it was also these views that were responsible for the disesteem it received for quite a long time.However, if we look at Critical Review from an unbiased perspective, at least two questions are worth noticing:first, Hsueh-hengSchool was not diehards; in fact, it welcomed western culture to foster a new culture as long as the traditional culture was preserved. Critical Review School and New Youth School agreed that literature was constantly developing and both were dedicated to searching for a way of cultural development suited for China; the only difference lay in the directions that they took--- the assertions of the New Youth School were taken to extremes. Second, the views and propositions of New Culture Movement accounted for only a small part of contents of the Critical Review 79th, and the rest of the articles were aimed for the spread of western culture, pure academic discussionsand literary creations.The Critical Review School was academicin essence; its academic achievements should not be denied simply because its standpoints did not appeal to the New Culture Movement. Current academic research in this period mainly focuses on the divergence between Critical Review School and the New Culture Movement, but there are still some unexplored matters:a profound probe into its educational aspects has not been done and its religious and traditional literary aspects have not been taken seriously.Out of concern for the above contents, the dissertation encompasses six chapters. Chapter one deals with the fundamental information about Critical Review. First, chapter one explores the process of its foundation, the reason for its enclosure, and various conflicts between its members. Second, the paper introduces the journal’s publication and sales, which was not satisfying because of its conservative contents and forms determined by its traditional cultural position. Joint efforts of Mi Wu and other scholars have forged certain overseas fame for it though. The third part of Chapter One discusses the ideology behind Critical Review, one that highlights a combination of the ideas of the east and the west, both with a profound Confucian tradition andmastery western culture. The fourth part of chapter one defines Critical Review members. Several founders undoubtedly belonged to the school, while other authors who once published articles on the Journal’s literature section should be listed according to specific circumstances. For example, Chen yinque, Wang Guowei and many others held different opinions from those of GuangDiMei, MiWu, XiansuHu, so they belonged to the School but were not representatives. Last, the chapter makes a brief introduction to other journals in that period of time.Chapter two and chapter three talk about several disagreements between Critical Review School and the New Culture Movement. The first contradiction lies in the different cultural roads that the two schools put forward respectively. New Youth School advised to substitute Chinese culture with the then advanced western culture, while Critical Review School suggested a combination of the east and the west. At the same time, to coordinateother movements, New Youth School had a firm goal and thus a narrow range of objectives while Critical Review School emphasized an objective and comprehensive introduction of western culture. Second, New Youth School advocated clearing out traditional literature and eliminating classical Chinese via literature revolution, whereas Critical Review members deemed the beauty of vernacular literature low and restricted in uses, thus not a qualified replacement for classical Chinese. Besides, vernacular as upheld by New Youth School was different from traditional vernacular in that it had a clear Europeanimprint, and its receivers were still limited because literature written in this language was not the true sense of civilian literature. Third, in terms of literary and political relations, the two sides also had great differences. Critical Review members focused more on the cultural orientation, the artistic value of literature, and the independence of the literature and culture, while the New Youth asserted that saving the country overrode all other concerns and it criticized the former on the ground that it hindered the revolution and enlightenment.The fourth chapter is about the school’s traditional literature research, including four typical literary figures, namely Yongji Liu’s study of classical poetry, Xiansu Hu’s poetry study in late Qing dynasty, Mohist philosophy and theory of Lao tse. Yongji Liu’s aesthetic orientation was significantly influenced by the poetry of song dynasty poetry; his views on lyric poems were mainly affected by Zhouyi Kuang, Zumou Zhu, Guowei Wang and others. He drew on several classical styles and formed his own, he was good at both the literary creations and research, and he was one of the best in the school. Xiansu Hu’s poetry commentaries were the first to do detailed, in-depth study of the late-Qing-dynasty and modern-poetry works, of which panel studies on Dacheng Ruan, Mingzhen Yu, Cengshou Chen, Hao Wang and Tingshi Wen were truly pioneering. The poetry of the above authors had been neglected, or merely mentioned with few words by some poetry notes before, and thus lacked regulations and thorough studying. Almost each of Xiansu Hu’s comments pioneered a leading road for the following scholars. Critical Review School’s research on theory of Lao Tse was not systematic, but it showcased cognition on the relations between Confucianism and theory of Lao tse, as well as a criticism of the modern studies of the Pre-Qin Philosophers. In terms of Mohist research, Critical Review School emphasized more on the Confucianism since the late Qing dynasty, Mohist gradually overwhelmed Confucianism in China. Critical Review School emphasized Confucianism above all else, an emphasis intended to rectify the utilitarian tendency of researches at that time. However, their practice of elevating Confucianism at the same timeblotted out the uniqueness of the Mohism.Chapter five is intended for the School’s religious views. As the position of the cultural conservatism, Critical Review held an attitude of religion consistent to its view of culture. In other words, Critical Review explored the role of religion in an objective way and pointed out that religion had important implications in upholding human morality, supporting for the human spirit, and promoting the development of natural science. It held that religious organizations in China opened schools, and hospitals, and benefited the society in various ways. Critical Review proposed to discriminate between religion and the church in allusion to the fact that some religious organizations did have illegal and aggressive acts. Although Critical Review School has many internal differences, its members insisted on the rationality of the religion’s existence, and were opposed to the non-religious movement.At the same time, the school conceded that many aspects of the current religious situation needed to be improved, and that the feudal superstitious rituals should be abolished to make the religion more of a whole.Chapter six explores the education thought of Critical Review School, which advocated promoting basic education in addition to salient elitism. They opposed a materialistic mode of education and were committed to nurturing a spirit of independence, morality of perfection and personality of integrity. At the same time, the school supported education independence movement, deeming that education should be independent from politics, and that it should not belong to any political party. In addition, the school’s articles also involved studies of the specific ways of teaching, such as professional education, normal education, primary and secondary school education, rural education, etc. Most of its suggestions fitted in the actual situations of modern China.Overall, the focus of Critical Review School was just the same as that of its forerunner Irving Babbitt. It had a broad range of studies, including literature, education, ethics and religion, history, etc. Traditional Confucian thoughts and Babbitt’s humanist thoughts build the thought system of the school. However, since several of its representatives were Babbitt’s pupils and Babbitt had made quite a few analyses of the modern society, there was an explicit influence of Babbitt’s humanism on the school’s thought system while Confucian influence was implicit.