Researching On Yan Yuan's Pragmatic Education Thought

Born in a poor family and spending his lifetime of frustrations, Yan Yuan devoted the whole life to educational activities. He was appointed to take charge of Feixiang Zhangnan College when he was 62 year old. It was about 40 years since he opened his family school in his twentieth. During the period, he trained a large number of students ,who have been recorded more than 100. Among of them there were industrialists and businessmen,farmers,natural scientist and more like Lee Gong, Wang Yuan as great scholar. His outstanding disciple Lee Gong inherited and evolved Yuan's theory formed a more well-known school of thought at that time, later known as "Yan Lee School". Yan Yuan's pragmatic educational thoughts and practice was a milestone in Chinese educational history, which is of great significance.In the long-term educational practice, Yan Yuan clearly realized that the most prominent malady of traditional education was education divorced from reality. Therefore, he advocated "learning and practice", "Not in favor of bunkum"all lifetime. In order to achieve his educational pursuits, Yan Yuan took the major reform on the content and methods of the traditional education system. The keynote of this reform consistented with the tendency of modern education, which has an important influence on the formation and development of modern education.This thesis is divided into five parts.The first part comprehensively interprets the concepts of "Chinese practical knowledge in 17th century" and "Yan Lee School", defines their characteristics and meanings.The second part analyzes the background of Yan Yuan's idea, separately from social background, educational background and family aspects of the impact, which revealed the reason of Yan Yuan's theory. The third part mainly discusses about the philosophy basis of Yan Yuan's idea. "Treatise of Human Nature","material for the body","Personally do thoroughly and acquire true knowledge" and other important philosophical propositions.The fourths part comprehensively expounds the basic content of Yan Yuan's idea. Related to the four aspects: the aims of education,educational channels,educational content and teaching methods, contents and methods of education are the main. Educational content includes: "Six Classics" study,physical education,practice technical education and labour education. Methods of education mainly includes: "learning and practice",teaching students in accordance with their aptitude,both giving dual attention comprehensively and focusing on expertise.The fifth part gives the evaluation to Yan Yuan's idea of education, including the history status,influence and the history limitations of his pragmatic education.