University Of The Ethical Spirit

Mr. Cai Yuanpei is destined by fortune to present on the historical stage at his time. His ideas of education voices wishes of a group or even a class. Such ideas reflects a dream of a generation or even a nation at that time. As an outstanding scholar in Chinese traditional culture, Mr. Cai Yuanpei also is a great propagator for western culture. As a beneficiary of imperial examination and feudalism, he also is a great revolutionist fighting against Qing Dynasty as well as a pioneer committed to republic. As a designer of Chinese modern education, he is not only a founder of Chinese modern universities but also an executor engaged in fulfilling his dream of education. As an ideal liberalist with patriotic feelings, he devoted himself to education in order to achieve his dream to create a new China and a new world, for he considered that education was the foundation to hit such a target and universities were the mainstay in the education. Liberty, democracy and humanity, originating from western ethical principles, were well grounded in Cai Yuanpei's understanding of righteousness, forgiveness and benevolence in Chinese traditional culture. He did not only develop such ethical principles but also combined Chinese traditional culture and western modern culture creatively. Such ethical principles were not only his criteria to judge what is wrong or right but also his ideas to judge national affairs, to develop education and to manage universities. The ideas, such as freedom in academics, inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, supervision by professors, overall education and so on, reflect profound ethical principles and lay the foundation for universities education.Based on such ethical principles, the paper explores Mr. Cai Yuanpei's thoughts of education, and particularly researches on his thoughts of university education in order to enlighten us as to how to reform university education. On the basis of Mr. Cai Yuanpei's thoughts of university education, educational freedom, the paper clarifies his thoughts, educational freedom, educational independence, supervision by professors, and cultivating perfect characters, from the four aspects as following: the status of universities, the core of university education, the principal part of universities and the purpose of university education. Moreover, the paper also tries to analyze the source and philosophical foundation of his thoughts with regard to university education on the basis of the influence exerted by western culture and Confucianism. In addition, the author, in the paper, also probes deeply into such issues as ethical principles to evaluate the system of modern universities, criticism of university education popularization, the relationship between aesthetic education and cultivation, the supervision by professors, the probability of professional presidents, the relationship between university education in internationalization and internalization, and the relationship between the equality of universities education and the popularization of universities education.Nowadays, the most important task in modern universities education does aim to cultivate students all-rounded with independent characters and responsibilities for themselves as well as to develop their capacity to master concrete knowledge and application rather than to teach knowledge. The fundamental principle of modern universities, nowadays, is that man should be centered and the desire for science and freedom should be advocated. Therefore, the systems of modern universities education should be built up to help realize such ethical principles.