The Western History Textbooks In Meiji-era And The Translation Of It In Late Oing China

At the beginning of 20th Century, China, in its late Cling Dynasty period, started a top-down reform on traditional education system. Modern schools came into being with the replacement of the " The Four Books and The Five Classics " by the new ones of Mathematics, Chinese, History, Physics, Chemistry and so.In history textbooks, western history, namely history of Europe and America, had been introduced formally, which means, China had embarked on a new era with an all-round comprehension on western culture and political evolution and left the narrow vision inspired by the spirit of "learn from the advanced technologies in the West in order to resist the invasion of the Western powers" behind. However, the textbooks used on the initial stage of its reform drive, were neither written by Chinese themselves nor translated directly from western books, but translated from Japanese textbooks, including the western history textbooks. Japan was in Meiji Emperor’s rule when Japanese began to translate and introduce western history textbook which laid the foundation of Japanese world history conception also prevailing in the west. With the translation of Japanese textbooks on western history, the world history conception popular in the west had largely influenced Chinese traditional history. This article will brief the western history textbooks translated by Japanese during the Meiji’s time to make it clear how the world history conception had been absorbed by Japan through translation of western history textbooks. Secondly, introducing China’s translation and introduction of Japanese textbooks on western history and try to see whether China had inherited the original elements embedded in western history or, taking in its own views, to draw a preliminary conclusion on the origin, overview of translation and introduction, its contents and influences during late Qing Dynasy.