Where To Go?A Study On The Development Route Of Cheeloo University(1927-1949)

As an ecumenical religion,Christianity would like to associate with the local community and has a complex relationship with them during its communication.Indigenization is one of the key issues that the Christian Church in China had to deal with and couldn't avoid since the 19th century.The educational missionaries want to cultivate the students with Christian character and establish a new Christian society in China by the spirit and mode of the western educational system that be copied from the western world to China for running the modem universities.Christian university in China was established by the foreign missionaries and overseas missions.The spirit of the university was deeply influenced by the Western religious ideological trends.The Christian higher education would prefer to shape their students with Christian character and change the social order in China under the influence of Social Gospel,so its concept of the social service has turn out to be the spiritual core of the Christian university.Cheeloo missionaries were stick to the indigenous school-running method that identified with Christian service.They stressed that the university should raise the students with Christian character and spirit of social service and ask the students to pay attention to the poorer classes,not the well-paid job.Also,the students could serve those people who were living in the rural areas and really in need of their talent.Only in this way can the university achieve the eventual aim of Christian higher education,that is,to establish the Christian social order and the kingdom of God in China.Therefore,in the 1920s,Cheeloo take rural service as the university's development policy.Rural service act in accord with the consistent service proposition of Cheeloo and could express the humanistic care of Christianity.Meanwhile,it could contribute to the development and modernization of Chinese rural areas.However,rural service,which appears to be conducive to Chinese grass roots society,is a religious social reform movement enforced by the missionaries,and it will manifest its unrealistic and unreasonable aspects in the implementation,especially its religious themes is opposite to the secular trend of the modern university,therefore,the indigenous group in Cheeloo would not appreciate the rural service route.Christian universities need the participation of the Chinese,only in this way can they survive and develop in China.In the 20th century,the resources that the overseas missions provide would not be able to meet the needs of the Christian universities in China,so the Chinese domestic support gradually had an impact on the universities.With the expansion of the scale of the Christian university,the dissolution of theological element,the promotion of educational functions and the internal composition of the university had become more and more complicated.The population of the indigenous group in the university had a secular growth.Most of the Chinese citizens,teachers,workers,alumni and students,which made up the indigenous group,had their own identity,career pursuit,teaching philosophy and so on.The growth of public education,the influence of nationalism and the register to the national government have objectively accelerated the development of indigenous group in Christian universities.The group would no longer willing to be the assistants of foreign missionaries,but rather to equally participate in the development of the university,to make their voice heard,to fight for their interests and achieve their self-worth,especially when they had developed to a certain scale.Naturally,there were divergence and conflicts between the indigenous group and the western groups in and out of the university.As a matter of fact,there was another indigenous approach of development in Cheeloo,in addition to the rural service route,which was advocated by the management of the university.The indigenous group in Cheeloo would be inclined to break through its own restrictions and choose another localized path that adapts to the needs of local society,in contrast to the rural service that was advocated by the western missionaries.The rationality of this claim is to have the keen perception of the actual needs of the local community that would help the university obtain a greater social space.However,the behavior that excessively cater to the needs of students and society is utilitarian.In the long run,this claim might cause damage on the basic objective of Christian general education,which emphasis that the students seek for the opportunity to the upper class by the university education.The indigenous group in Cheeloo show themselves as traditional elite's attitude of reserve and conceit elite,they care about purely academic pursuit much more than the individual care for the rural people.Sinology research is the advantage of the indigenous group in Cheeloo,and it is an important way for the Christian universities to amalgamate Chinese culture,so it has both academic and political legitimacy.Clearly,the college is more willing to go up,rather than go down,when the elite consciousness behind this research orientation affected the development of College of Arts and Science.It is political correct and totally worth of appreciation that the indigenous group in Cheeloo fight for their rights,their own development space,meanwhile it definitely is a symbol of nationalist consciousness awakening,and leads the management system of the university to be indigenous.At the same time,this unconscious resistance which strikes against the religious rural service route is reasonable and according with the secularization trend of the Christian university.It is the cannons and unequal treaty system that the modern Christian higher education can be established and developed in China.Under this mechanism,the foreign missionaries in Cheeloo had a sense of cultural imperialism,so they can easily ignore the demands of the indigenous group,and may not respect their Chinese colleagues' feeling,interests and achievements.The missionaries emphasize the importance of service for the local community,but in practice they question the ability and belief of the indigenous group,besides that,they wouldn't give up the power of leadership and guardianship of the university.Besides,they do not want the Chinese guys to jump into the management and operation of the school.In a word,they do not trust the local people.The cultural imperialism not only lead to the culture misunderstanding and the conflicts in the university,also make the indigenous strategy of the university in short of local support,so it is difficult to fulfill the indigenization.