The Magistrate Of A County, Aides And Staff In The Office Of A Commanding General, Scholar And The Old Fogy

This disertation paper is to make a systematic and deep study on Lao Nai-xuan from family background, receiving education and his circle of friend; his career of aides and staff in the office of a commanding general; his political thoughts; his academic interests and chievement;.his educational practise and thonghts; his old fogy 's activities and psychology. Lao Nai-xuan was born of a literary family of bureaucrat from generation to generation.He received a good education from childhood. His education did not come from his father ' family but his mother ' family(his grandfather—Shen Tao). Lao Nai-xuan was granted a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations in the tenth year of emperor Tongzhi (1871).It was basis of securing an official position, striving for aides and staff in the office of a commanding general and was engagaed in academic research from now on. He made lots of friends of all ranks and classes throughout his life. I narrate the events of between Lao Nai-xuan and his many friends with characteristic. It is helpful to recongniaze the journey of his political and acdemic thoughts.Lao had acted as the magistrate of a county in six counties of Zhili Provice from 1879 to 1900(from the fifth to twenty-sixth of emperor Guangxu). He won a high reputation for three recommendation of remarkable achievements. In addition, he entered into the office of the commanding officer of Fan Liang, Li Hong-zhang, Zeng Guo-quan, Zhou Fu, Sheng Xuan-hai, Ling Xing-rui and Duan Fang. In the office of the commanding officer, Lao mainly dealed with official documents and correspondence. I analyse the types of his official documents and correspondence according to"original manuscript of Lao Nai-xuan's official documents and correspondence". He also acted as high official because of good behaviour at the office of the commanding officer of Duan Fang .He was promoted to a higher post gradually and at last hold the post of the president of the Imperial University of Peking and the vice-minister of the Xuebu(the Ministry of Education). It shows that the two things about his career of aides and staff and his post promotion are complementary.There are three aspects about Lao's political thounghts. The opinions about political reform is different in the Yangwuyundong(Westernization Movement), in the New Political Period in Late Qing Dynasty and Republican China. But he believed"Application of Western Ideas within the Chinese Tradition"by and large. In the Boxer Uprising(or Boxer Movement), he wrote Observe and Study origin and development of the Boxer Uprising and stubbornly insist that the Boxer Uprising was the tributary of the"White Lotus"and was the"Cults". Because his demonstration was careless and a baseless conjecture and so on, his opinion was not accepted by the imperial government. After Republican China was estabilshed, So-called Gonghe (republic) that Lao advocated i.e. Zhoushao Gong (in zhe Xizhou Dynast), he believed constitutional monarchy would be set up then.He steressed repeatedly that democratic system was unsuitable for China.As a scholar with plenty of knowledge in Modern China, he had great attainments on Chinese traditional learning and had fixed level on Western learning (a late Qing Dynasty term for Western natural and social science).I systematically analyses his academic chievement on Chinese traditional learning and Western learning and affirms his chievement on Dengyunxue(Phonology) and reform of Chinese(simplify or phonetic annotation of Chinese characters). His academic chievement had outstanding progress. At the same time, it also had regular conservative ideas. Especially, he was firmly against for western democratic system because he was addicted to Chinese traditional learning and could not break through the shackles of"Application of Western Ideas within the Chinese Tradition". This shows he was bound by historical surroundings.In the course of social changes in Modern China, Lao had commonplace in character with traditional literati and officialdom(or schoolar-officials in feudal China) who believed in traditional ideas. On the other side, he was the collection of the magistrate of a county, aides and staff in the office of a commanding general, scholar and the old fogy, so he had his own characteristic.Lao Nai-xuan was an educationist in the Late Qing Dynast. His educational practise included in From Home School with Private Tutor, Academy of Classical Learning, schools of phonetic letters to Modern Comprehensive University and embodied the feature the replacement of tradition and modern in the Late Qing. His educational practise had made progress in advancing education. Fettered by the age and his own thoughts, Lao had conservative inclination of keeping feudal ethical code. Because he was engaged in education for many years, he advocated preschool education,women education and private education. He devoted major efforts to developing an universal education to strive for the early accomplishment of the constitutional monarchy.Lao Nai-xuan also was a famous old fogy after Republican China was established.He insisted on safeguarding the proposal of Confucius.He devoted himself heart and soul to in the Qing and is hostile to Republican China. His activities and psychology failed miserably owing to go against historical trend. But for he helped Richard Wilhelm in translating Yijing (The Book of Change) into German, Lao took positive effect on cultural exchange between Chinese and Western.