Study On Liang Shuming’s Farmer Education Thought

Since the coming of the new century, the issues of agriculture, farmer and rural area have been attracting increasingly extensive society concerns. Aiming at the issues of agriculture, farmer and rural area, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCCPC) has put forward the grandiose goal of constructing socialist new rural areas; and the main force to fulfill the obligation of constructing socialist new rural areas is the vast peasant mass, so to cultivate new farmers should be the important task of constructing socialist new rural areas. The fundamental way of cultivating new farmers lies in farmer education; therefore, the farmer education should be the inexhaustible power in constructing socialist new rural areas and ought to be attached extreme importance to it. At present, for the development of farmer education in China, it must both consider the practical situation of rural areas and review the history for seeking the beneficial experiences. As for the farmer education launched by Liang Shuming in Shandong in1930s, it’s an important link of Chinese education history; and the series of proposals on farmer education proposed by Liang during this historical period has certain enlightening significance even today. In view of this reason, we will deeply research and discuss Liang’s thoughts on farmer education in this dissertation for seeking the beneficial experiences for farmer education nowadays. Apart from the introduction (the first chapter) and the conclusion, this dissertation is mainly composed of5parts.In the2rd chapter, it will comprehensively discuss the proposing of Liang’s farmer education thoughts. In the first section, it will introduce the cause of promoting the construction of rural areas. The farmer education thoughts of Liang had mainly been put forward during his movement of rural areas construction, and moreover, the farmer education experiment had been promoted in the process of rural areas construction; therefore, in order to research Liang’s farmer education thoughts, to investigate the movement of rural areas construction is needed. The main causes of Liang’s rural areas conduction include4points, they are to relieve rural areas, the self-relief of rural areas, society construction and the consideration of rebuilding social structure. It’s in the process of rural areas construction for Liang elaborating his thoughts on farmer education and the farmer education is a very import link of rural areas construction; therefore, it will analyze the relation between rural areas construction and farmer education in this chapter. The farmer education thoughts of Liang had been influenced by conventional rules®ulations in rural communities and Danish education, for the content in this aspect it will be analyzed in chapter3and chapter4.In chapter3, the main content and practices of Liang’s farmer education thoughts will be deeply analyzed. In his early days, Liang had ever elaborated some farmer education opinions in Guangdong and Henan, etc., and these thoughts should not be ignored as an important part of Liang’s farmer education. Liang’s organization of leading the rural areas construction and farmer education in Shandong is the Research Institute of Rural Areas Construction that located in Zouping County. The Research Institute of Rural Areas Construction was the leading organization of schools in various villages and towns and it was also an education organization itself. The foundation of this special organization reflected some unique thinks of Liang in farmer education from another angle. In the last section of this chapter, we will detailed introduce the main organization institutes for Liang to promote farmer education, the schools in various villages and towns. The schools in various villages and towns were the main practical fruits of Liang’s farmer education thoughts and should be paid highly concerns in researching Liang’s farmer education.In chapter4, we will proceed to analyze the main content and practices of Liang’s farmer education thoughts. In the first section, it will introduce Liang’s opinion of intellectuals’ contribution in rural communities. Liang had fully realized the importance of intellectuals in farmer education and repeatedly called on intellectuals returning to rural areas for dedicating in farmer education. In the second section, another farmer education thought of Liang that showed particular characteristic-the spiritual cultivation would be introduced. Liang thought the spiritual cultivation is a basic way of farmer education, and said that it only basing on the elevation of spiritual morality, the other ways of education like the literacy education and skill training, etc. would be carried out effectively. For the3rd section, it focuses on science&technology popularization and training. Liang had ever paid his great efforts to popularize the science and technologies in Zouping, etc. The process of popularizing science and technologies is also the process of carrying out sci-tech training. The last section mainly analyzes Liang’s opinion on renewal of the convention rules®ulations in rural communities. When modifying the convention rules®ulations in Zouping, Liang had also boosted a series of social reform movements and had obtained good results.The major content of chapter5is the historical assessment for Liang’s farmer education thought system. In the first section, the comparison of Liang’s thoughts and those of the contemporary rural areas constructers would be given. The famous contemporary rural areas constructers with Liang were Tao Xingzhi, Huang Yanpei and Yan Yangchu, etc., they had formed their own farmer education thoughts in the long time of exploration and boosted experiments for farmer education. It has important significance for accurately grasp Liang’s farmer education thoughts by deeply comparing their difference. In the second section, the historic contribution of Liang’s farmer education thoughts would be mainly introduced. Through deeply researching, we think Liang’s historic contribution mainly reflects in boosting the reform of farmer education idea and the development of rural areas construction. In the last section we will mainly analyze the boundedness of Liang’s farmer education. Essentially, the rural areas construction and farmer education thought is a reformism route, so it destined his farmer education can’t obtain the real success and even more impossible to realize nation’s independence and rich&mighty through farmer education as well as can’t realize Chinese cultural renaissance.In chapter6, we will mainly dissertate the enlightenment of Liang’s farmer education to present age. Although owing to its historic boundedness, Liang’s thoughts had not achieved real success, but there are still many points that deserve reference for the farmer education nowadays. Especially, it has certain significance to actively borrow his reasonable ideas on farmer education in the times when we are dedicating socialist new rural areas construction with our greatest efforts. We think the enlightenment and significance of Liang’s thoughts mainly reflects in the following points. One is the base point of education. We must actively summarize and utilize Chinese culture and bring the excellent parts of Chinese culture into the farmer education system. The second is the education content. We must not pay attention to the raise of farmer’s skills in wealth achieving alone, but to also pay our attentions to the improvement of farmer’s spiritual situation and morality qualities and to establish all-sided education system. The third is the education ideas. In the times when all kinds of knowledge representing the explosion trend today, we must actively advocate the lifelong education idea as Liang did before and found lifelong education system. The fourth is the objects for education relying on. In famer education we must rely on intellectual all the time and encourage them to realize their value in it. The fifth is to optimize the education system. We must pay attention to optimize education system in famer education and to combine organically various education forms and strive for the maximum benefit of education. The sixth is the starting point and purpose of education. In the process of developing farmer education, it’s necessary to take farmer’s fundamental interests as the starting point and put them on the chief position all the time. The last is the improvement of the ways of education. We must take the way of humanization in farmer education so as to realize the final purpose of education.