A Study Of Zhang Zhidong 's Thought Of Practical Learning

In the Late Qing period, western powers gradually stepped up its expansion in China, whichdirectly leaded to more and more severe survival crisis of the government of Qing dynasty. At thattime, Zhang Zhidong, as a member of the imperial academy, believing a good scholar can become anofficial, on one hand launched the largest westernization movement in order to improve the strengthof the whole country, on the other hand advocated real learning trying to restore the learning spiritconveyed in Confucianism. Zhang Zhidong’s thought of real learning came into being under theconflict and blending of eastern and western ideology and reflected the traditional Chineseintellectuals’ efforts to carry out the modern transformation.Zhang Zhidong was born in officials family and grow up in war. He studied hard and lay a solidbasis on Confucian school of idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming dynasties. Later he turned tostudy Confucian classics, and strengthen life ambition about studying real problems for the purposeof application. In early years Zhang Zhidong advocate the real learning based on the Confucianclassics. With the contact with western culture, Zhang Zhidong expressed his real learning by“Chinese soul and western body” and tried to solve cultural conflicts between Chinese and western.Zhang Zhidong thought that Chinese Saint theory is the core and source of Chinese academic,various Chinese academic schools all can be traced back to the source. Confucian classics wasrevised by Confucius systematically study the reality form of Saint theory. Confucianism is differentapplication about Chinese Saint theory by later Confucian. Zi Xue is different understandings toChinese Saint theory by other distinguished scholars In the pre Qin Period. Chinese Saint theory istruth and can explain everything. The true reason about Modern western prosperity is that westerncountries act as Chinese Saint theories’ command. On the contrary, China had lost the true spirits ofChinese Saint theory because Confucianism had added too much external performance and mostelites were too lazy. Thus Zhang Zhidong advocated real learning education based on Confucianclassics and history, eliminated independent St. school substance, integrated Chinese Saint theorywith Practice.Zhang Zhidong’s pragmatism has distinctive characteristics of "the unity of knowledge andaction". The practice that Zhang Zhidong carries out to preach the real learning spirit is summarizedfrom three aspects, namely the traditional Confucianism view of Nature, Profit and Heaven. Becauseof his personal practice, Zhang Zhidong strongly believes as long as the learning spirit is properlyused in daily practice, the goal of emphasizing statecraft can be achieved. His personal achievementis also an evidence to show the traditional Confucianism can be applied in the modern society tosave the whole nation. Zhang Zhidong’s view of Nature particularly emphasizes the influence ofpersonal efforts on one’s destiny and to some extent the view is beyond the concept that man canconquer nature, pursuing more personal efforts to seek the Nature’s support on a higher level. Interms of view of Profit, Zhang Zhidong argues that things should be done with the consideration ofnational profits, instead of personal interests, which steps out of the trap of parochial profit view, setsup Chinese modern industrial system, explores the earliest construction of monetary, financial, fiscaland taxation system and stresses a large amount of material benefits is the cost to ensure the nationalprofits, which has already extended the narrow personal interests view to a view of the society as awhole profit entity. As for the view of Heaven, Zhang holds his steadfast love for Chinese traditionalacademic but never resist the advantages of western culture. He advocates dialectically treat westernculture, takes its essence and discards the dregs. His own understanding of the three views doesn’tstay on the ideological level but is carried out through practice. The three aspects are notindependent of each other but overlap each other during the whole process of westernizationmovement and safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty. With the supporting and interactions of eachother, the three views become the practical reflection of Zhang Zhidong’s real learning spirit.Seek truth from facts is the prominent characteristic of Zhang Zhidong theory. Facts includesthe subjective world and objective world. He advocated analyze and compare in practice to Learnfrom others’ strong points and close the gap. Zhang Zhidong was good at Using the classificationmethod to find different parts of objects and take advantage of the difference, understand thehistorical process and strive for a favorable situation. Zhang Zhidong stressed that stand on one’sown, emphasize “All things belong to me”,and enjoy the independent state.The analysis of Zhang’s real learning spirit has a positive impact on how to definethe real learning spirit in the Late Qing period, can be referred to re-recognizetraditional culture and possesses warning significance for the current China facing allsorts of complicated situations home and abroad. However, Zhang Zhidong doesn’trecognize the ideological change and notice the early spreading of Marxism philosophy,thus it is impossible for him to evaluate Marxism from the perspective of Confucianism.Besides, Zhang pays little attention to public enlightenment. Although he is one of thepioneers who advocate compulsory education, Zhang neglects the public demand ofenlightenment, which leads to Zhang’s real learning spirit is limited to elite education,far from educating the majority. These limitations are inevitable because of that era. Onthe whole, Zhang makes outstanding contribution to the modernization process in Chinawith his devoted efforts in multiple fields. It is can be seen that the real learningeducation Zhang proposes possesses great value in traditional learning spirit, Confucianclassics, Confucianism, literature and so on through its external manifestation ofemphasizing statecraft. How to explore the value deeply conveyed in Chinesetraditional culture with the adoption of reasonable methods in order to make it meet therequirements of current development has become the priority of Chinese traditionalculture renaissance.