On The Transformation Of Academic Knowledge And The Establishment Of Modern University System In China

The main body of the Chinese traditional academic knowledge is the Confucianism, which is an ideology to a great extent. So the traditional academic knowledge confuses the truth with politics, knowledge with applications. As the modernization of the late Qing Dynasty's society progressed and the great national crisis emerged after the Opium War, the limitation of the traditional academic knowledge had become more and more urgent to be addressed. Under the impact from the surge of resurrected statecraft theory, many non-confucianism schools resurged and the western modern academic knowledge was introduced to Chinese. Consequently, this changed the traditional academic framework that the knowledge of Confucian classics took the dominated role. The traditional academic knowledge started to transform from its old form to a new form, XinXue. XinXue pursues practicality. It takes Chinese classics as substance and takes the western modern science as applications. This"substance– applications"duality architecture determines that XinXue be just a transitional form of academic knowledge. Driven by the movement of"advocating education"after the first Sino-Japanese War, XinXue developed to be the ideological and academic resource of both the reform of the old education system and the establishment of a new one. The foundation of modern universities such as Beiyang School, Nanyang College and Grand Capital School was the result of institutionalization of XinXue. These early modern universities had great difference with both TaiXue and traditional academy in many aspects such as subjects, teaching methods, teaching units and so on. Their foundation can be regarded as the symbol of the modern university system commencement. However, limited by the inherited essential defect of XinXue, these universities still had many severely feudalism properties. In an inevitable modernization trend of the academic knowledge, as the academic transformation proceeded, the modern academic knowledge would gradually shape up and the modern university system would improve continuously.Discipline differentiation and scientific methodology are two dominating characteristics of modern academic knowledge. Chinese traditional academic knowledge advocates generalist cultivation and is averse to expertise. After the Opium War, the society differentiation between town and country and the emergence of many kinds of new professions invoked the inner requests for diversity and expertise of knowledge. Influenced by the demonstration of western modern discipline system and specialized education, the new style schools in late Qing divided the academics into disciplines and implanted all subjects of nature science which were lacked in Chinese traditional academic knowledge and some subjects of social science. In the process of implementing the different training for different disciplines, especially after the establishment of modern discipline system, the Chinese traditional academic knowledge had been rapidly marginalized. Inspired by the thought of"revisiting traditional academic knowledge in a view angle from western academics", many scholars mounted great efforts to accomplish the modernizing conversion in significance, connotation and architecture of the traditional academic knowledge. As historiography is a typical important field of the traditional academic knowledge, the establishment of modern historiography subject architecture can illustrate the reconstruction of the whole spectrum of traditional academic knowledge in the environment of modern discipline system.Argumentation, elucidation, commentary work on classics and textual criticism are the common methodologies of Confucianism research. With the establishment of the modern knowledge system based on nature science, scholars had to change their mode of thinking and their research methodology radically. The preliminary training of science and technology in new schools in late Qing had given the students an initial impression of the modern scientific methodology. The torchbearers in late Qing like Yan Fu, Liang Qichao and so on had not only intensely criticized the traditional methodology in Chinese classic researches, but also devoted their efforts in translating introductory materials about western scientific methodologies. Later in the early ages of the Republic of China the many returned students from either Europe or United States who have received formal training of western scientific methodologies started to promote it enthusiastically as well as performed it in their own research works. With these former preparation works, the modern scientific methodologies such as deduction, inference, induction and experimental research had been gradually accepted and adopted by domestic research community. Especially the experiments became an important standard method in nature science education. Just like the situation occurred in the west world, the positivism abstracted from the experimental research invoked a research methodology reform in social science in our country. The positivism methodology proposed by Hu Shi combined western and Chinese methodology. It overthrew the traditional classic research methodologies and set a norm for Chinese modern academic research.The establishment of modern academic institution and the modern knowledge system which accommodates the needs of production and living activities in modern society, plus the appearance of modern professional scholars, provided solid foundation in both academic and social aspects for the institutionalization of modern university system. Around the 1920's, in response to the need of institutionalization of modern academic knowledge, a group of modern university principals, of which a typical and famous representative was Cai Yuanpei, launched the institutional reforms in the universities founded since late Qing and eventually established the institutionalized modern university system. Formally, the academic freedom, the professors'authority in university management, the establishment of colleges and departments as academic organization unit inside universities, the foundation of research institutes, and the teacher qualification inspection system all appear to be transplanted from the western university system. But materially, these academic regulations root in the need for development of our country's modern academic knowledge, and are in some degree the outcome of selectively inheriting and developing the traditional education system. The belief of truth and the pursuance of academic freedom were the offspring of the transformation of an important property of academic activities from moral preference to intelligence preference. The pursuance of academic freedom and"academy society"by professional scholars endowed the universities a strong academic atmosphere, making the universities the places to pursue the truth. The disengagement of academic knowledge from politics ended the Confucianism based politics-academics-blended academic institution. A new type of university academic institution emphasizing the professors'authority was then established. The replacement of Mens with departments was not only the result of conforming to the disciplinarity trend of modern academic knowledge, but also the efforts to rearrange educational resources globally and to cultivate talents in diverse branches of the expertise, bearing the inherited traditional educational tenet to cultivate generalists. The foundation of research institutes was the succession and development of the convention of researching in our country's traditional academic activities, as well as the result of establishing independent innovation invoking mechanism to fulfill the object of academic independent development, under the background that the western academic knowledge introduction period was approaching end. The roles of teachers had changed from the"preachers"being both officers and teachers to just the"educational workers"who make living by academic researching in the professionalizing process of modern academic activities. Certificates and research works became the requirement to enter the career of university teachers. Under the influence of the modern university system that conformed to the need of circulation, production and research of the modern knowledge, the academic transformation in our country accelerated its pace. The development of modern academic knowledge stepped into a path of independence and innovation.