| American missionaries who came to China in the near history are called hidden people of the American history. The reason is that they played an important role in diplomacy, trade and culture communication between China and the USA, and they also made special contributions towards initiating modern education and transmitting western Christian Culture. Young John Allen was one of the missionaries who came to china in the recent history, the author chose him to make a case study not just because he was the whole person of being a missionary, an educator and a journalist at the same time in his over forty years living and working in China, but also because that his close relationship with reformist officials of Qing Dynasty had a great impact on the politics, education and culture of late Qing Dynasty.In 1860s, Yong Allen had to devote most of his time to teaching and translating while putting his missionary work aside although he was very passionate in his sermon preaching. During this period, he worked at Guangfang Language School and then at the translation office of Jinagnan Manufacture Bureau. This experience not only improved his economic situation, but alsogave him opportunities to meet people of the upper class and thus to know more deeply about Chinese society. After getting rid of his economic hardship, Young Allen put his energy back to his missionary work by publishing the Church News which was renamed as The Globe Magazine, with which he hoped to preach sermons and get believers. But later the newspapers' poor business and lack of new Christians withered his passions. In 1881, Young Ellen founded a church school called Western Chinese school in Shanghai, because of this school, he resigned his post at Guangfang Language School and stopped publishing his Multi-countries Communique. He dedicated himself to the cause of education. He formed his own particular conceptions on education and culture out of his experience of running his school. His work made some positive impact on the modernization of Chinese education at that time.This dissertation analyses Young's conceptions on education and culture from three different aspects: Confucianism, system of imperial examinations and educational ideologies. Young was the first person in history to combine Confucianism with Christianity. He argued that Christianity must make some concessions andskillfully combine its doctrines with the dominant Confucianism if it wanted to replace the latter. About the system of imperial examinations, Young Allen pointed out its malady that it is impractical with big empty words. He argued that the system of imperial examinations must be abolished so that Chinese undeveloped education could be improved. Young Allen proposed to reform the elementary education by learning the western education. He founded Western Chinese School and a girl's school with the conception of liberal education, which was fairly progressive at that time.The guideline of running his western Chinese school was to pay equal attention to the western and eastern culture. Young hoped to affect Chinese society's development by moving some secular education to China which would bring out some talented leaders with western views. But at last his attempt to emphasize both the west and the east failed, his school turned out to be a lineal Christian school instead of an ideal mixture of some secular education.After studying Young's conceptions of education and culture and his activities in China, the author thinks that replantingChristianity in China is destined to fail. In the process of westernization in the recent history, Yong's thoughts and practices were not unscientific, but Chkese culture must keep its core unchanged and can regenerate and develop after accepting a foreign culture, however, replanting Christianity can not conform with this condition. A successful culture transmission and communication must be based on good transmitting mechanism and receiving mechanism, either of which is not replaceable. |
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