Ideology And Practice Of The Modern Educator Of Wu Rulun Education

The First Opium War in 1840 opened the prologue of Chinese modem history while at the same time served as the starting-point for Chinese people to fight against invasions from the West. Since the Nanjing Treaty was signed, China gradually changed from an independent and autarky feudal society to semi-colonial and semi-feudal one. Consequently there arose two trends: one was the conversion from an independent country through a semi-independent colony to a thorough colony; the other was the transformation from feudalism through semi-feudalism and semi-capitalism to complete capitalism. And it was the latter that actually corresponded with the development of Chinese history. The modernization of Chinese education beginned just at that time. Before the war, traditional education in China was based on self-sufficient agricultural economy and feudal autocracy. With the purpose of surviving the nation, traditional education underwent a transition to modern education that was based on industrial production and the development of capitalism. The transition was inevasible though there were ups and downs in the process.Wu Rulun was a well-known savant From the school of Tongcheng in the late Qing dynasty , meanwhile he was also a forerunner of Chinese modem education due to his rich experiences and thoughts in the field. He paid close attention to and was greatly involved in education in all his life. He was one ofthe main reprisentatives who built local educational institutions, and later he attempted to make innovations in the convention. He particularly made contribution to the abolition of imperial examination system and the transmission of capitalist culture that represented advanced predicate then. In his old age, he inspected Japanese educational system, which was one of main events in the educational communication between late Qing dynasty and other nations. His work Notes of Inspections in Japan was honored as a compass to guide the improvement of the educational system in the late Qing dynasty. His distinct and constructive proposals touched upon diverse fields, and provided significant direction to the popularization of the modem education as a science. All his thoughts and deeds laid the foundation of his position in the history of Chinese modern education, specifically in the modernization of Chinese education.In passing it should be pointed out that Wu Rulun was also constrained by the era he was in. As an adaptanist, he was affected by new learning and old learning, Chinese learning and western learning, and conservatism and reformation. There was an obvious trace 揅hinese learning as the fundamental structure, Western learning for practical use ?in his belief, which was commonly characteristic of his contemporary thinkers. Nevertheless when viewed from another perspective, that was an inescapable step in the process of modernization of Chinese education and a less the age left to us.