An Essay On Cai Yuanpei's Middle School Educational Theory

As a founder of the bourgeois educational system in China's modern times, Cai Yuanpei made a great contribution to the dissemination of the bourgeois educational ideology. In the past much attention was paid to his work in the fields of higher education, but little research was made into his notions about MSE(middle school education).By inductive and contrastive and contrastive methods and via study of his ideas, the present author intends to analyze and discuss the relations between his ideological implications and the times in such respects as the nature of middle schools, the aim and purpose of MSE and middle school pedagogies.By defining the nature If MSE as general education, Cai Yuanpei maintained that middle schools serve as the means to lay solid foundations for higher education, which offers professional knowledge. He objected to the practice of separating the liberal arts from the science and technology, and that of confusing MSE with vocational education. Holding that MSE should consists of four parts of morals, intellect, aesthetics as well as physical culture , and its target should aim at the formation of students' perfect personalities, he considerably emphasized the cultivation of student's morals, the roles of physical and aesthetic culture in facilitating their moral formation ,and made a thorough exposition of what should be included in moral education from the perspectives of diligence ,vocation ,rights and duties, bravery and math in the category of instrumental disciplines, and held that a practical attitude be take so as to facilitate the national development, he included the natural and social science in the category of knowledge accumulation, and excluded what is non-scientific out of the courses.Thinking highly of the role of the physical culture in students' mental andphysical development, and the role of aesthetic education in the formation of their noble ideology, Cai also gave a thorough exposition of the contents and principles in middle schools' physical culture and put forward valuable suggestions that teachers should have abundant professional knowledge, good teaching techniques and noble morals; teaching should follow the students' natural instincts and be conducted in accordance with their aptitude; and students should, under the guidance of , the teachers study independently and act in a perseverant manner; learn to review, think and summarize, and put what they've learnt into practice. Only in this way, can they achieve good efficiency and proficiency,...