Research On The Relations Between Public Universities Of Republic Of China(1912-1937)

Since the birth of the university, the relations between universities and government(hereinafter referred to as: G-U relationship) has been heatedly discussed among all sectors of society. The reason why it is so popular is because G-U relations form a crucial part of the higher education system reform, but also casts major influences on the personnel training, social progress and the prosperity of the country at large. From the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912 to the outbreak of Anti-Japanese War in 1937, the Republic of China can be described as "powerful neighbors threatened outside, and the Republic of China had become sub-colony; politics is inordinate inside, the people are poor and lack of the wealth.” This ill-fated period with “domestic strife and foreign aggression” caused grave disasters to the country, society and people, and became an unmentionable memory in the history of China. In the gray,even black memory, a batch of public universities(If there is no special instructions in the following text, all the “university” means public university) initiated by government became a rare and beautiful scenery line, which have shining lights now. In the meantime, not only Cai Yuanpei, Mei Yiqi, Ren Hongjun and other eternal figures in China’ s education history appeared in universities, but also Peking University, Tsinghua University, National Central University and others appeared, “of which the number was smaller than the foreign mainstream universities, the quality was as well as them” Such scene could appear in universities which had been the important constituent part of society for a long time, it could not be denied that government played a critical role, except the efforts of universities. In the external environment with such dilemma, public universities could still glow thriving vitality, and realized “opposite growth”, the government function should not be underestimated. For this reason, the exploration of relations of public universities of Republic of China and government is very significant and has practical significance. Though the study on universities of Republic of China in academic circles has been in-depth and specific at present, researches on relationship between public universities of the Republic of China and government are rare, because materials are deficient, study span is large, and it is difficult to research and judge the relations.What kind of viewing angle shall be used to analyze the relations between public universities of Republic of China and government? This is a primary problem faced by the research. As everyone knows, the researches on G-U relationship are varied, and the forms are not unified, but when making hard things become simple, in the final analysis, the relation is just the status of interaction and effect between things and things and people and people. So the research shall take “relation” as the core concept; 1912—1937 as the space-time limitation; 22 public universities of Republic of China as examples; literature, case, comparison, historical analysis and other research methods as means; respective relation between government and principals, teachers, students and other core stakeholders in universities as dominance dimensionality; university autonomy and government intervention as the recessiveness dimensionality to study and judge the unstable and balanced relations between public universities of Republic of China and government.Jiang Menglin, the principal of Peking University at that time, mentioned that:“there are three forces in a university, one is principal, one is professor, and the other one is student.”According to the theory of stakeholder, combining the reality of universities of Republic of China, the core stakeholders in universities mainly include principal, professor and student, they respectively play the role of “mediator”, “supervisor” and “resister” in the G-U relationship, and these roles show the G-U relationship from an aside. And the demonstration and comparative research on 118 principals verify that there are many factors to select principals, students and teachers in universities have different opinions to the principals appointed by government, but the government occupies the leading position in selecting and appointing principals. Principals have “double” identity, “official” and “university manager”, which makes it possible for them to mediate universities and government. Appointment of teachers and selection of students are decided by universities, government wants to control it through policy guidance, party education and other measures, while it seems to be strong in will but weak in power under the resistance of professor autonomy, professors governing academic studies, pupil self-government, student movement and other measures. Teachers contain administrative power by professor autonomy, professors governing academic studies and other academic powers, students confront the government by wide and sufficient autonomy, even extreme student movements, teachers and students respectively play the role of “supervisor” and “resister” in the G-U relationship.On the basis of the above researches, the qualitative analysis, research and judgement can be done for the unstable and balanced relations between public universities of Republic of China and government. It is mentioned in the Philosophy of Higher Education, master work of John·S·Brubaker, the famous scholar in America that: “From this, the popular relation between them(universities and government) is an unstable balance.”In virtue of the view of physics and theory of administrative jurisprudence, the concept of “unstable balance” is raised, and the “unstable balance” characteristic of G-U relationship is confirmed. Through the dimensionality of respective relations between government and principal, teacher and student; the recessiveness dimensionality of university autonomy and government intervention in the view of principal, teacher and student; the historical evolution process of G-U relationship; characteristic view, relational normal form, results orientation, universities of Republic of China and government are verified to be the “unstable balance” relation.“Imitating the ancient time is good for modern time, no ancient time, and no modern time.” Through the historical experience and introspection of the relations between public universities of the Republic of China and government, the far-reaching significance of the G-U relationship in the period of the Republic of China can be realized. At present, there are some “unbalanced” problems in the G-U relationship, such as the execution of independent school system is poor, decentralization of the government is poor and separation of powers of universities is uneven; boundary between university autonomy and government intervention is unclear; status of universities in society is low. To solve these problems, the equal status of universities and government shall be cleared; power list, responsibility list and negative list shall be established; the “quaternity” balance among university manager, teacher, student and government shall be kept; repair mechanism of dynamic equilibrium between universities and government shall be built, by which reconstitution of the G-U relationship is done, and dynamic equilibrium of relations is promoted.Based on summarizing all studies, some basic conclusions are gained: Firstly, in the view of core stakeholder in university, principal, teacher and student respectively play the role of “mediator”, “supervisor” and “resister”. These roles reflect the their own status of principal, teacher and student on the surface, while actually show the G-U relationship in an aside; secondly, autonomy and government intervention of public universities of the Republic of China run parallel and follow each other. In the G-U relationship, university autonomy and government intervention are quite important measurement indexes. Historical data show that, public universities of the Republic of China are not the isolated “tower of ivory”, government is not just “bystander”, and the public nature of the universities decides that there is autonomy in universities and intervention in government. In general, it can be clearly found that government of the Republic China had never abandoned intervention of universities, universities also had never abandoned the pursuit of the autonomy, university autonomy and government intervention were in the dynamic equilibrium, and each of them has the own limitation and range; thirdly, universities of Republic China and government were in the relation of “unstable balance”. This judge is from the role definition of principal, teacher and student in the relation between universities and government; from the research and judgement on dominance and recessiveness dimensionality of the relation between universities and government; from carding of historical evolution process of relation between universities and government; from deduction of characteristic view, relational normal form and results orientation; fourthly, explore the relation between universities and government turning to “dynamic equilibrium”. What kind of relation between universities and government is the best, it may be difficult to find an absolute standard answer in different context and background. But the relations between public universities of Republic China and government bring some historical experiences and introspections, it means that the G-U relationship shall be in a kind of dynamic equilibrium, this balance has both the basic equality between universities and government, and basic equalization of university autonomy and government intervention, also the “quaternity” relation among university manager, teacher, student and government, even the repair mechanism of dynamic equilibrium is required for the relation between universities and government to keep.In summary, the study has made some innovations on the content, perspective and conclusions. It pays attention to the special relationship between university and government in special period and under special circumstances in Chinese history, Secondly, on the perspective of the study, it focuses on the core stakeholder perspective; focuses on using the concept of physics and Administrative Law; and focuses on the use of explicit and implicit dimension to create “quaternity” normal form of relationship between university and government; finally, on the conclusion of the study, it establishes the relations of public university of the Republic of China and governments are in a “precarious balance”, puts forward the biggest question of relations of contemporary public universities and government is “unbalance”, the reconstructed path of relationship between university and government is to “moving towards balance”.