A Study On He Bing-Song's History Education Thinking

He Bing-song was a history educator in the era of The Republic of China, one of exploits in modern history education .So far. there is no comprehensive or systematic study on He Bing-song's history education thinking.He Bing-song's history education thinking underwent a process of germination, formation and maturation. In the period of germination, He Bing-song's exploration into history education centered on the goals of history education, research methodology for history in primary'and middle schools. All these appeared to be just his random ideas. During the period of formation, He Bing-song explored extensively into the goals of history education, history teaching, history textbooks, the relation of history to other school subjects and history examination. The contents of He Bing-song"s history education thinking was relatively comprehensive and systematic already. In the period of maturation. He Bing-song's history education thinking was further deepened and consummated.He Bing-song's history education thinking consisted of his particular views on the goals, textbook, teaching and evaluation for history course.Given the function of history. He Bing-song argued that the goals of education consisted in: firstly, "contributing to the understanding of status quo" by associating history education with solutions to realistic issues; secondly, "cultivating human wisdom" by relating history education to comprehensive development of human quality: thirdly, "promoting revival of our nation" by combining history education with patriotic efforts which save and rejuvenate our nation. These three aspects are well integrated.Those textbooks compiled by He Bing-song for middle schools were in line with an evolutionary comprehensive perspective on history. Materials were sampled on the base of "comprehensive study" and with an eye to equality. The contents of textbook were made both "concise and practical'", "detailed with modern history while brief with old history". Those fundamental in human culture were also elaborated in detail. His textbooks were in a style of general history with chapters and sections, which materialized the concept of "generality". The wording of textbook was clear, accurate and vivid.Since history is irreversible, He Bing-song indicated that a basic principle for history teaching was "to revitalize the past" so that students could gain perceptual knowledge of history. History teaching could adopt "practical" and contrastive methods. It could be...