On The New-Typed Scholar's Practice Of Sinification Of Science In The Late Qing Dynasty And Early Republic Of China

Yu He-qin, as a new-typed scholar in the late Qing Dynasty andearly Republic of China, set foot in the fields of science, education,politics and industry.Among three history phases of the eastward spread of westerncultures, the practice of sinification of science was only confined to theindraught and communication of science and technology in the formertwo stages when science missionized by missionary, indraught oftechnology performed by Westernization Group. After the Sino-Japanesewar during1894-1895, a group of illuminati born out of traditionalscholar in China began to turn their eyes to western science for ournational power declining day by day, and so eastward spread of westerncultures came into the stage of scientific enlightenment, in which theilluminated clerisy became protagonist of science communication, and itscontent also slowly expanded from scientific information to union ofscientific information, scientific tradition and scientific ideas, namely,they practiced sinification of science by the manner or way such asscience study, science translation, science education and science industry.Among the new-typed intellectuals, besides reformists of1898, there alsowas a passel of people passed into the history, who forwardly gave upimperial examinations, turn their steps to science, and endured greathardships in pioneer work, kept an enterprise going by painstaking effort,for the sake of practice of sinification of science. The most representativeone of these is Yu He-qin."History is made up of individual activity, sohistorical research isn't always independent of study of figures." Thereisn't an exception to the research of science history. As far as domesticresearch, specializing of science figures were mostly about those greatscientists in China or foreign countries, just a few figures such as DuYaquan, etc, were involved, but little attention was paid to the progressiveclerisy, who were born out of traditional Chinese scholar in the late QingDynasty and early Republic of China, dared to renovate, and appliedthemselves to practice of sinification of science. As far as Yu He-qin isconcerned, there was either run-of-mill collection of historical materials, or incidental mention in the other researches, but so far no systemic studyspecialized.This dissertation is purposely to figure Yu He-qin as a new-typedscholar who dedicated himself to sinification of science in the moderntimes, as a whole, following the route of introducing scientific knowledgethen transplanting scientific tradition, scientific practice then scientificideas, adopting the research methods such as document interpretation,document statistics, historical textual research and analysis, comparativeresearch, etc; based upon the zero documents such as archives, theprimary documents such as books or papers, the review of all Yu He-qin'slife, his writing, and the context of ideas and society,, fellows in hispractice; then in perspective of his communicating scientific knowledge,transplanting scientific tradition, explaining scientific mind, analyses hiscontribution and character to the practice of sinification of science,manifests his true historical status, in order to provide a new approach tostudy the eastward spread of western cultures and demonstrate a studymodel of "non-mainstream" science figure born out of the old Chinesescholar in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, whileaccumulate or clarify the research materials with China's modern historyof science, provide history of science with some new materials.The whole article can be divided into seven parts:In introduction, the context of subject and the actuality of researchare summarized. The method and thinking, the difficulty and academicimportance of investigation, are also included in this part.Summary of Chapter One, Chapter Two are orderly focus on YuHe-qin's life, his political, military experience beyond his practice ofscience and industry, and the context of concept and society in hispractice of sinification of science. All of these are the base to making theinvestigation of Yu He-qin and his practice of sinification of sciencethoroughly.Chapter Three mostly reviews Yu He-qin's contribution to thecommunication of chemistry knowledge according to the translation ofscience theories, science terminologies and science terms, then introducesand analyses shortly his foundational works and ideas in the subject ofgeology, meteorology.Chapter Four introduces and analyses mostly Yu He-qin's strugglefor the indraught of science tradition such as organizing scienceassociation, founding science industry, editing science periodical, and thepractice of science education such as acting as science teacher, compiling or translating science textbook, etc.Chapter Five introduces and analyses mostly Yu He-qin's scientificthought and concept of Neo-Confucianism, namely two different Lixue:the former is his explanation and think about science&technology, thelatter is his Xinglixue as a subdiscipline of Chinese tradition Neo-Confucianism, absorbing lots of western culture, especially westernscience.The conclusion is based on the research of this dissertation, toanalyze the characteristic of Yu He-qin's practice of sinification ofscience, and arrives at a conclusion of this dissertation as follows:Yu He-qin, who changed from an old Chinese scholar to anew-intellectual idolizing science at the turn of the century of19and20,together with the else contemporaneous new-intellectual, replaced westmissionaries and became an important branch practicing sinification ofscience in the early20th century, then filled the mind gap between thetwo parties of science communication in a certain extent, and boosted thewest science disseminated in China. Though he was not famous for a real(namely sociological) scientist, but he worked with might and main in theprocess of Chinese modernization, and promoted western scienceknowledge and science tradition to take root in China. He was a personwho played in the surf in the Chinese transition period from traditional tomodern, a person accelerated China's modernization, but because of someexceptive accounts, there was little mention in those ordinary books orperiodicals about his "No.1in China", so his practice of sinification ofscience in the fields of science, industry and education naturally can notbe pay attention to, he was nor able to become a science communicatorwell known to the succeeding generations, like the later new intellectualsstudying in Europe and the United States such as Ren Hong-juan, WuCheng-luo. Nevertheless, What Yu He-qin did in the practice ofsinification of modern science, especially what he did originally,undoubtedly played a underestimated role in promoting the process ofChinese modernization.