On The Aesthetic Education Of Cai Yuanpei Modern

The thesis consisting of four parts: introduction, "replacing religion with aesthetic education", the nodernity of Cai Yuanpei's aesthetic educational psyche and conclusions, aimed at examining objectively Cai Yuanpei's aesthetic educational psyche as well as its modernity.Devoted his life to education in hope of saving and strengthening the nation, Mr. Cai turned the focus on the general ideological meaning of education, though his enlightening ideas can see traces of the traditional practice of "trying to solute the problem by means of ideology" to some extent. His ideas did a powerful blow to the traditional educational ideas colored by the influences of politics and ethics, and at the same time highlighted the concept of the aesthetic education. "Replacing religion with aesthetic education" is the core and distinguishing feature of his aesthetic educational psyche and also a thread organizing his whole theory. Strictly speaking, "replacing religion with aesthetic education" is not a choice originally based on the disadvantages or evils of religious doctrine, but on the modernity of outside world and the long-time evils of traditional religion. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly a milestone in the developments of the aesthetic educational ideas in China.Though Mr. Cai made good use of some westernresources to establish his own aesthetical theory, his theory belonged to China of the time when the aesthetic modernity had not on the stage. So, unlike many western scholars, he did not dwell on the negative side of enlightenment for criticism of the aesthetic modernity. Rather than follow the practice in the western dichotomy between the aesthetic and the science and technology, he advocated the aesthetic enthusiastically and aimed at satisfying the modern emotional needs and spiritual needs. In short, Mr. Cai's aesthetic educational psyche is based on understanding the modern western Aestheticism as preached by the traditional Confucian norm of prosody, especially one of Friedrich Schiller's aesthetic educational processes which proceeding from Nature through Taste to Reason or Beauty, a work of Reason. And such a psyche is, in essence, an attempt to mold a new kind of ideology to help enhance scientific innovations and social reforms with the ultimate goal of revival of a strong China. (This is one of the major features of the modernity of his aesthetic educational psyche.) Yet, once a worship of Confucian doctrine of Song and Ming dynasties and later a modern intellectual of liberalism, Mr. Cai was shown in his ideas to be deeply influenced by the tradition of "ideology first" on the one hand, and on the other hand, to be a unique modern enlightener, he reevaluated the traditional values according to the needs for survival in new conditions. So what he tried to do goes far beyond the explanatory power of the traditional ideology and the modernity, and rather, is an attempt to reconstruct them.