A Study On Jiang Qian

Jiang Qian is a famous educator,Character reformer and Buddhist scholar of modern China.He focused on mainly two fields of Normal Education and Buddhist activities in his later years all his life.During his managing Tongzhou Private Normal School and Nanjing Higher Normal School which he was the first headmaster,he made many pioneering educational initiatives around talent training under the new education system with the idea of saving the country by education and also is a pioneer of Chinese Modern Education.In his later years,Jiang Qian converted to Buddhism and became a famous Buddhist practitioner of modern times who devoted himself to Buddhist activities.The educational work of Jiang Qian is particularly prominent and everywhere the rationality glitters in lots of his educational thought so far.With his dual status as an educator and a Buddhist,Jiang Qian has a unique and important position in the history of modern China.The paper,under the guide of historical materialism,through collecting and sorting out the literature,field survey,interviewing the offspring etc,using the method such as historical literature research,interdisciplinary research,the oral history study,and so on,based on the predecessor research results,combining with the background of the times of Educational National Salvation,tracking the influence of his family education,school education,social thought,provided a comprehensive analysis of his educational thought through his educational practice and the reform of a writing of system during his managing Tongzhou Private Normal School and being in charge of Nanjing Higher Teachers’ College from 1902 to 1919;The paper analyzed the motivation of his transformation from a famous educator to a Buddhist scholar,took a deeper look at the features of his Buddhist activities through his devoting himself to local autonomy of Wu Yuan and creating Foguang Society and Lingfeng Society later from 1920 to 1942,discriminated and evaluated the nature of his Buddhist practice,scientifically determined his historical position in recent history.The educational thought of Jiang Qian mainly comes from the traditional culture which takes Confucianism tradition as its dominant content,while influenced by the western culture’s transmission to the east and the impact of National Salvation especially led by Zhangjian under the situation of national crisis.He sticked to the root of the Confucian benevolence and honesty,influenced by the Yangming doctrine greatly,Mixed the main body of the education ideas of traditional Confucianism and the thoughts of the western science.He succeeded in building Tongzhou Private Normal School and Nanjing Higher Teachers’ College into first-class universities of the same level schools in modern China,which effectively promoted the modernization of the secondary and higher normal school of China.When he manged Tongzhou Private Normal School,he always adhered to the soul of Chinese culture and the effect of utility,payed attention to teaching renovation,opposed the vulgar customs of empty talk,advocated the simple atmosphere of reading while plowing.What he had done made Tongzhou Private Normal School known nationwide at last.During the same period,he displays the important leader in the Reforms of Chinese Characters,promoting the unification of the national language and universal education.As a headmaster of Nanjing Higher Teachers’ College,Jiang Qian persisted in the basic of Chinese studies and application,recruited teachers including the masters of Chinese culture and students studying in America.He set the largest of subjects and the first subject of Physical Education throughout the country which formed the purpose of education of constructing personnel with moral character,intellectual capacity and physical health of Nanjing Higher Teachers’ College.Jiang Qian is the first educator who put forward the lifetime sports thought and the personality education which fostered the good school spirit of Nanjing Higher Teachers’ College,and he made the important foundation and pioneering contribution for the National Southeast University which originally developed from Nanjing Higher Teachers’ College and became one of the only two comprehensive universities of the country.During his series of educational practice,Jiang Qian was always persistent in the root of regarding Confucianism as the core of the traditional culture,while learning from the west,focusing on practical implementation and became the the forerunner of the modernization of Chinese normal education which established the important status in the higher pedagogical education of modern China.The traditional cultural with the core of the Confucianism is the basic idea of his saving the nation through education.It shows that the reasons why Jiang Qian coverted to believe in Buddhism are complicated,including the reasons of the effect of the improvement thought of the modern bourgeois which is represented by Liang Qichao in the period of Chinese social transformation,the deep social external reason of weaker of control ability led by central government which made Buddhism revive,the internal reason of long term physical sickness which prevented him devoting himself to education.Advocating saving the country through Buddhist is the road of his converting to Buddhism.Jiang Qian converted to believe Buddhist from Pure religion,then integrated various sects and focused on studying Pure Land at last.The idea that Ouyi who advocated that Confucianism and Buddhism had the same ancestor,and Yin Guang who thought that it would be perfect if Confucianism could mix Buddhism had a profound effect on him.Jiang Qian objected a variety of socialist in the society,regarded Buddhism as new faith,tried to advocate to defend the nation by good deeds,claimed the idea of saving the nation through morality with the unity thought of his Confucianism and Buddhism.He devoted himself to local autonomy of Wu Yuan through planting the trees and creating the school,trying to set the education,religion,industry and charity as a whole.He was succeeded in creating the far-reaching Foguang Society and made it become the crown of lotus society in China through Buddhist education and Buddhist research and propaganda of Buddhist culture etc.Foguang Society had a profound influence on social customs and morals construction of his hometown and even in southern Anhui.He created Lingfeng Society,tried to cultivate the talents who owned a good knowledge of both Confucianism and Buddhism.Lingfeng Society had a dramatic effect on the cultural awareness of Jiangsu and Anhui Province.Jiang Qian exhorted people to improve people’s hearts and society through the means of abiding by social rules,stopping evil for good etc.The root of regarding the Confucianism,Buddhism and Taoism as the core of the traditional culture is the core of his idea of national salvation and survival by Buddhism.The Buddhist activities of Jiang Qian is another way that he opened to save the country,which didn’t belong to the action of doing nothing.Because of the inherent defects within the road of saving the country by Buddhism,,the way was doomed to fail from the initial phase.But the intention that Jiang Qian tried to find the good way for National Salvation from the traditional culture played a positive role in uniting the lower class,maintaining social stability and amending social order etc.in practical life.Jiang Qian is one of the important representatives of the new Confucian intellectuals of China.Since 1919,His life was divided into two stages including saving the nation through education and saving the nation through Buddhist activities.Before New Democratic Revolution,Jiang Qian supported democracy and public,he regarded education as a way to renovate China and was an education reformer who could catch up with the times;After New Democratic Revolution,Jiang Qian was against struggle and revolution,he considered Buddhism as a way to transform China and became a advocate and practitioner who devoted himself to saving the country by Buddhism.History has once again proved that only the people’s democratic revolution can save China.Jiang Qian did not keep pace with the modern times in his last years,but inspecting his whole life,he was always on the long journey of finding the way to save the country,the strong patriotic thought was the soul link which run through his educational undertaking and his Buddhist practical activities.His unyielding fighting spirit and clinging action for saving the country was the hard miniature of many people with lofty ideas of the end of the Qing who searched for the way to saving the country and people in tribulation.In addition,the action of his educational saving the country through undertaking and his Buddhist practical activities was both basic on the Chinese traditional culture.Objectively his practice showed the strong energy and vitality of traditional Confucian cultural during the course of China which was in the process of changing from the tradition into modern and western learning.In order to overcome the danger of ignoring the role of the intension of traditional cultural in the course of human society,it is necessary for us to close attention and review the active actions of Chinese traditional cultural during the course of China’s social and the thought transformation from the 1990s to the early 20th century.