Modern Overseas Students To Japan And Educational Modernization Of Zhili Province (1896-1928)

During the second half of the19thcentury, after being heavily shaken by the first andsecond Opium War and Taiping Rebellion, the government of Qing Dynasty launched a largescale reform campaign—to learn from the western countries, which is known as theWesternization Movement in Chinese history. It was a reform that desperately aimed at thesurvival of the Chinese nation by learning advanced technologies from the western countries.One of the key components of the Westernization Movement was the modernization oftraditional Chinese education. However, as the miniature of the Westernization Movementitself, limited by cultural and ideological differences, the development of education waslanguid at that time. Under this background, the educational modernization of Zhili Provincewas also very slow.The educational modernization of Zhili Province actually began after the Sino-JapaneseWar at the end of the19thcentury. The smashup shocked the whole nation, both thegovernment and the public started to recognize not only the difference made by the hugesuccess of Meiji Restoration, but also the fact that advanced education and rich humanresources were fundamental to fight against the western bullies. Therefore, many men ofinsight instantly realized that overseas education was an expeditious royal road to solve thisproblem. Influenced by the result of the Sino-Japanese War, the destination of overseas studyshifted from European countries and America to Japan. Zhili Province’s adjacency to Beijingand its guarding position and responsibility determined its leading role to send overseasstudents to Japan. In order to accelerate the educational modernization, Zhili Province hadbegun to send students to Japan to study strategics, law and politics, and teacher-training longtime ago. Encouraged by the example of Zhili Province, the rest of the country soon joinedthe upsurge to send overseas students to Japan.Given its special status, many returned overseas students to Japan were employed byZhili Province. They either worked at the education administration agencies or taught atvarious levels of schools. Thanks to their assistance, advance educational concepts were introduced into Zhili Province, advance educational methodology was adopted many greatworks on education were translated, which had contributed to the establishment of amodernized educational system in Zhili Province and enabled it to excel the other provincesin military education, law and politics education and teacher-training.“The training ofmilitary officers and police officers, the reform of the justice system and the dissemination ofeducation all started from Zhili Province, then emulated by the central government and theother provinces.”Under the influence of the overseas students to Japan, it can’t be doubted that ZhiliProvince had made great achievements in military education, law and politics education andteacher-training. Still, the historical limitation exposed in the education modernization processof Zhili Province can not be denied that it was a better mocker than innovator. Therefore, weshould remember the lesson this period of history taught us. That is, in contemporary overseaseducation, we should make a further and deeper study of western science, thoughts andculture. We can’t just imitate the skin-deep surface and simply borrow their ideas. It is moreimportant to use them as references, based on which we can innovate and exceed at the end.That’s our ultimate purpose.