Study On Institutionalization Of Textile Discipline In Modern China

Textile discipline is the product of the development of textile industry. With the deepening of the industrialization process, the acceleration of equipment import, the sophistication and specialization of technology as well as the compaction and complication of industrial relations, the demand for various types of talents is intensified, industrial management and collaboration is enhanced, knowledge popularization and social communication grow, which hasten the complicated yet grand historical institutionalization process of textile discipline from textile education to textile community, then the conduction of textile research and the publicity of textile journals in the early modern China. The textile industry of the early modern China was initiated under the stimulus and promotion of foreign powers such as Britain, the U.S., Japan, etc. almost a century after Britain. The institutionalization of the textile discipline in the early modern China which was born under the hastening of textile industry was also stimulated and inspired by Britain and other powers; it also adhered to the development sequence that the development of textile industry promoted the institutionalization of textile discipline, which was undertaken by Britain and other powers but the process was taken half a century later than Britain.With the breakout of the Opium War in 1840, the western powers introduced the advanced power textile machine and broke the traditional hand-loomed production mode in China. Bureaucrat capital, national capital and foreign capital founded modern textile companies in China and the industrial development drove the demand for professionals. In 1897, the earliest textile educational institution, Silkworm Discipline Institution, was established in China, which is the start of the institutionalization of modern textile discipline in China. The early textile education in China was conducted with a reference to the course and internship arrangements of western countries and foreign teachers and students with overseas study background were hired as teachers. After that, several other textile educational institutions were established in the early modern China which cultivated a great many textile professionals who founded multiple textile communities in order to have textile academic communication and published textile journals to have wider exchange in textile industry and the academic field. The textile researches of the early modern China were conducted in textile educational institutions, textile research institutes and textile plants and it developed and deepened in the process of importation, digestion, absorption and re-innovation of the advanced textile machineries and technologies from the west. Differing from institutionalization of math, physics, chemistry and other basic sciences, institutionalization of textile discipline not only drives the development of the discipline itself but also becomes an inner drive for the development of textile industry, realizing the “dual-core effect” of theoretical drive and production promotion. Up to the foundation of new China in 1949, our modern textile industry completed the thorough revolution from the production mode of manual machine textile production to power machine textile production under the combined influence of the external drive of the western powers and the internal drive of the textile discipline institutionalization movement spontaneously started by our own people.Therefore it can be noted that the institutionalization of textile discipline is not only the major component and core drive of the modern textile industry in China but also an important subject to comprehend and grasp the historical transformation of the modern textile industry in China from the traditional mode of production to the modern mode of production, from import and digestion to independent innovation. We can obtain some beneficial theoretical and historical reference in the strategic transformation from a large textile power to a strong textile power from the systematic and profound exploration and research of the modern textile institutionalization in China, the clarification of its historical context of emergence, development and shaping, the summary of its deep connotations and main characters, the founding of its development trend and inherent law, the discovery of its internal motivation mechanism and external social causes as well as the organic integration of the internal history and external history researches of the history of science. But generally speaking, no systematic research has been conducted by previous researchers who only gave some scattered introductions to part of the signs of textile institutionalization. Therefore the theme of the thesis has relatively high innovative property and large theoretical and practical significance.On the basis of referring to a great many first-hand literature materials of modern China, especially library journals collected by Shanghai Library, National Library, Zhejiang Library, etc. and with a integration of the researches conducted by previous researchers, the thesis aims to conduct centralized exploration, collating and research on the modern textile institutionalization in China from the four aspects of textile education, textile community, textile research and textile journal so as to grasp the background, connotation, characters, context, internal and external impetus in the institutionalization of our modern textile discipline as well as its significant contributions to the development of the modern textile industry in China as well as the inspirations for us today.Specifically speaking, the thesis is divided into nine sections:Chapter I is the introduction. Firstly it elaborates the purpose and significance of the theme and then puts forward some problems that shall be solved on the theme. Then it conducts some review on previous researches and analyzes the current research situation. Finally it introduces the research thought, method and innovative points of the thesis.Chapter II to Chapter IV elaborate the researches on our modern textile industry as well as the education background and the institutionalization development conditions of the textile education in different stages. The institutionalization of the textile discipline in the modern times of China was initiated from textile education under the influence of multiple factors such as modern society background, textile industry background, educational system, etc. our modern textile education was mainly located in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and other palaces of which, as major production places of silk, raw cotton and other textile raw materials as well as main trading ports of textile product trade, the textile education was featured by early opening time, large school amount, long development time and high figurability. Textile education can rarely be found in other places(e.g. the northern region, Hubei area, rear areas in the Anti-Japanese War, etc.) in the modern times and they only had textile divisions in their engineering colleges with small scale and short development time. There were both public and private textile educational institutions in the modern times, the types of education were rich and it was gradually developing toward high-standard education that most textile educations up to the foundation of the new China belonged to junior college education or higher education. Textile teaching and internship contents and textile teachers were originally introduced from western countries and gradually it developed into the state that our own people served as the teachers, compiled the textile textbooks independently, etc. Most textile educational institutions in the modern times were supported by textile internship and experiment workshops and configured with corresponding equipment. The textile educational institutions cultivated a great many talents for the modern textile industry and many teachers and students organized textile communities at school, published textile journals and established an early form of textile institutionalization. After the graduation of the textile professionals, they served in textile education and textile enterprises and public institutions, promoting the development of modern textile industry and textile institutionalization.Chapter V elaborates the researches on the main textile academic communities and textile industrial communities in the modern times of China. As the vital signs of institutionalization development the textile industry in the modern times of China, the modern textile communities can be divided according their different founders into in-campus textile community and textile communities founded by public figures and divided according to different research contents into textile academic community and textile industrial community, etc. In-campus communities were composed of teachers, students, schoolmates and other people in schools while the social textile communities were jointly composed of people involved in textile industry in various aspects. The textile academic communities aimed to have mutual communication and discuss textile academy so as to promote the development of textile academy, which founded with people involved in textile industry gathering together to exchange various information within the industry to enhance the development of textile industry. Clear regulations, missions and development goals were set at the beginning of various textile communities in the modern times and they organized regular meetings of their members to discuss various matters within the communities. Textile communities also organized and founded textile educational institutions, created textile journals and explored textile science, greatly promoting the institutionalization development process of modern textile industry.Chapter VI elaborates the researches on our modern textile research institutions as well as technological innovation and inventions on textile so as to grasp the scientific research development conditions and characters of our modern textile industry. The scientific research development of our modern textile industry is a process of importation, digestion, absorption and re-innovation for the advanced textile machinery and technology of the west; it sprouted from the internship and experiments of textile educational institutions, and then the government and some private companies financed to establish some textile research institutions to take scientific researches. Because of the speciality of textile industry, scientific researches require a lot of machinery equipment and solid professional knowledge and technique, which bring higher demands for financing and researchers. Some of the major textile research achievements in the modern times of China were invented by textile engineers in textile companies and published on textile journals for publicity and communication. Modern scientific researches developed actively under the supporting and incentive policies of the government which laid certain foundation for the scientific research of modern textile.Chapter VII and Chapter VIII elaborates the researches on the institutionalization development of the modern textile journals in China according to different publishing houses and the researches are divided into two types: journals published by modern textile educational institutions and journals published by other institutions such as textile organization, publishing house, textile companies, etc. Our textile journals appeared in the modern times as important communication platform and journals published by different institutions had different characters. The journals of textile educational institutions were usually issued by in-campus academic communities mainly focusing on textile academic contents and publishing papers written by teachers and students, research achievements, experiences, translations of foreign academic articles, articles written by experts of the field as well as information reported by textile colleges, related organizations, teachers and students and it served as a critical bridge between textile organizational institutions and textile industry. Journals published by other social institutions included not only textile academic contents but also a great many textile industrial contents as well as information related to the founding institutions; they had a variety of contents and served as a critical bridge in the communication among the textile industrial field, the textile academic field and various textile organizations, etc. People involved in textile industry could seek related contents they needed and acquire the latest industrial information from the modern textile journals; there were tens of textile journals before the liberation of China.Chapter IX is the conclusion. It conducted collating and summarization for the institutionalization development context of the modern textile industry in China according to the researches conducted in the previous chapters on our modern textile education, textile community, textile scientific research, textile journal, etc. The modern times from 1840 to 1949 is an important historical period which witnessed fundamental transformations of the production mode of textile industry in China and the emergence and development of the textile institutionalization of this period was the internal impetus of this transformation. In the first half of the modern times from 1840 to 1896, our textile industry developed under the promotion of the western powers, an external force while in the second half of the modern times from 1987 to 1949, the continuous development of our textile industry hasten the modern textile institutionalization which experienced mutual promotion and common progressing with the textile industry later. Before the liberation, we had established several textile institutions of higher education, organized some textile academic communities and textile industrial communities, founded several textile research institutions which had invented important textile scientific achievements and created tens of textile journals; the institutionalization of modern textile discipline have completed the periodic historic mission, promoting the fundamental transformation of the production mode of our modern textile industry as power machine textile production basically replaced manual machine production and became the major textile production mode after the liberation of China. Therefore the research on the institutionalization development process of our modern textile industry has significant importance as it lays a good foundation for the contemporary textile institutionalization and provides some valuable experience.Firstly, the government shall provide preferential policies and economic encouragement for the institutionalization development of textile discipline. Some individuals and companies did make great contribution to textile institutionalization, however their strengths were limited and only the support of the government could promote the development of textile institutionalization in a better way. Moreover, both the development of textile industry and the institutionalization of textile discipline are conducted around textile professionals, therefore we shall have a clear comprehension of the development situations of the textile industry and its demand condition for textile professionals so as to have a definite object in the institutionalization of textile discipline. Finally under the energetic support of the government and with a clear development direction of textile institutionalization, people involved in textile industry make concerted efforts to offer ideas and suggestions in order to seek for the rapid development of the institutionalization of the textile discipline and stimulate the prosperity of the textile industry.