Research On Liang Qi-chao's Women Education Thought

Abstract :Liang Qi-chao is a great thinker in the modem history of China, who made remendous contributions to the women education. Modem Chinese women education carried out in such stimulus that the western missionaries had firstly set up girl's school in china. Early reformers and Kang You-wei, Tan Si-tong, Yah Fu etc.who discussed women education provided rich resources for Liang Qi-chao's thought.In early stage, Liang Qi-chao advocated that women should have the right to be educated as men. In middle stage, he asked women to develop an independent personality and become citizens. Later, he advocated that women should gain the equal political rights. His thinking changed as the times, but the patriotism which was the main line of his thought always remained.This paper is composed of three parts:The first part mainly discusses the rise of modem Chinese women education. In Chinese traditional society, people considered that a good girl should not have rich knowledge, so girls had no chances to receive formal school education. The western missionaries set up girl's school in china just in order to disseminate religious, but their activities promoted the development of modem Chinese women education. Early reformers did not have systematic exposition and specific practices in women education, but they still provided help for Liang Qi-chao thought. Liang Qi-chao is the first man in modem history of china that systematically explained his thought and put his thinking into practices.The second part is about the main content and main line of Liang Qi-chao's women education thought. Logically speaking, his thought can be divided into three stages. In first stage, he advocated the education of girls, and tried his best to explain the necessity of the rise of women education. He severely criticized foot binding and launched the movement of loosening of foot binding in order to promote women education. He set up shanghai girl school with Jing Yuan-shan etc. which was the first girl school built by Chinese. In second stage, he advocated to train women through education to be a new generation of citizens that have thought about state and rights. In third stage, he encouraged women to fight for the freedom and political rights after receiving education.The last part mainly discusses the significance of Liang Qi-chao's women education thought. Liang Qi-chao is the first man in modem Chinese history that systematically explained women education thought. Undoubtedly, he was a pioneer on the issues of women's liberation. On the one hand, Liang Qi-chao's ideas was in line with China's national conditions; on the other hand, he stood on the trend of the development of entire human to think about women's problem and presented his original opinions. His women education thought and practices have a significant impact not only on modem Chinese history of the women's liberation movement, but also on contemporary Chinese society gender issues.