Research On Modern Chinese University Textbooks

Textbook is an important carrier of curriculum contentand the text reflection tocurriculum. It is not only an important basis for teachers to design and an implant ofteaching activities, but mainly dependence of students’learning. At the same time, thetextbook also to a certain extent, caryying a certain social value, will also affect the peoplethrough many channels. In modern China, the question of the textbook was always animportant problem during the development of higher education.By way of the analysis of the texts of modern Chinese university textbooks and bysorting out and reducing the historical materials, this paper has expounded the cause,process and historical function of the development of Chinese university textbooks, andhas reproduced the historical thread of the modernization of Chinese university textbooks.It is hoped that this research can provide some references to the establishment of presentChina’s university textbooks.The modern sense of the “textbook” is not the product of local culture in China, butthe result of “the introduction of the western academic ideas into China”. With thedevelopment of higher education of western churches in China and the establishment of thechurch universities, compiling, translating and publishing appropriate textbooks hasbecome an urgent problem. In1877, Christian missionaries in China held their first generalmeeting in Shanghai and decided to set up the “School Textbooks Committee” to edit andpublish textbooks for the church universities. Textbooks of modern sense have cone intoChina.The purpose of the church college textbooks remains for religious services, which isactually a cultural aggression. However, the church college textbooks have introduced intoChina the advanced western editing concepts and scientific content of textbooks, whichobjectively promote the modernization of modern Chinese university textbooks.At the end of19th century and the beginning of20th century, the modern Chinese“Bei Yang School” and “Beijing Normal School” were gradually set up. With the limiteddevelopment of the universities at that time, the instructors in “Beijing Normal School”and the like usually use the translated western textbooks or the self-edited handouts as the teaching materials. Lectures with handouts embodied the non-standardized features of thetextbooks at the initial stage of development of Chinese modern universities, but withobvious drawbacks, which indicates that all the textbooks are different and students lack ofreference books so as not for the students to be engaged in comparative research. At thattime, the university textbooks in China were mainly influenced by Japan, which ischaracterized by directly translating the textbooks of Japanese universities, teachingself-edited textbooks by Japanese teachers and teaching the adopted textbooks based on theviews and systems of Japanese textbooks by Chinese instructors. These three ways sharethe same origin. We can see that the textbooks of higher education institutions in China atthe end of Qing Dynasty come mainly from Japan.After the May Fourth Movement, with the further influence of American educationtheory, university system and educational reform practice, the U.S. college textbooks haveoccupied a dominant position in China’s universities. The original textbooks of foreignlanguages have good advantages, such as of good quality, conducive to learning English,and convenient for teachers to prepare their lessons, etc., but it also hindered thedevelopment and independence of modern academics in our country.With the development of higher education in modern China and the awakening ofnational consciousness, Chinese people began to compile textbooks by ourselves, whichmeans that university textbooks in modern China began its ongoing process of localization.The returned students aren’t simply translated foreign textbooks. They compiled textbooksby virtue of their own knowledge and the teaching practice purchasing the localization oftextbooks.In the30thyears of the20th century, the Commercial Press first committed the task tocompile textbooks for China, and edited and published the first series of modern Chineseuniversity textbooks–“University Series”, which is characterized by the modernizationand localization no matter in writing styles, forms, and content.In the period of Nanjing National Government, with the gradual improvement ofuniversity system and the independent development of academic education, universitytextbooks, began to enter a new stage of localization. The Ministry of Education,“decidedto accomplish compiling universe textbooks sponsored by the National Government, due totoo many different textbooks by different schools, which can not cover all the subjects, andthe lack of money during the national crisis.”3In1939, the Ministry of Education set up special college textbook editorial board, edited and published the “University TextbookSpecialized by M.E”, which marked the strengthening of the national will for compilingour university textbooks.With the development of Chinese modern university textbooks, the compiling andauditing systems for university textbooks has gradually formed. The “Beijing NormalSchool” and the Ministry in late Qing Dynasty played an important role in theestablishment of the system of textbooks. After the Republic of China, Ministry ofEducation of the National Government carried out the task of auditing textbooks. Theestablishment and improvement of textbook system, have, to some extent, ensured thequality of the publication of textbooks, but also have become an important means ofautocratic government to implement the aims of education, and to control the thoughts ofstudents.The modern Chinese university textbook is an important carrier for Chinese moderncultural heritage and continuity. It spread and developed the modern advanced ideas, andbroadened people’s views. The modernization of the Chinese university textbooks haspromoted the modernization of the training objects and course content of Chinese modernhigher education, and also promoted the establishment of university discipline system, andpromoted the reform of teaching methods.Although the era background of the modernization of the Chinese universitytextbooks is extremely different from building up present university textbooks, yet theproblems the compilers of the modern textbooks care and face are the same which Chineseuniversity are facing. In Chinese university teaching, there still exist kind of handoutteaching, self-edited textbooks, and introduced textbooks. There is also a kind ofcontradiction between the textbook compiling and selection of textbooks. Therefore,Chinese university have to sum up the experience and lessons of the development ofChinese university textbooks and, in the current construction of university textbooks,Chinese university have to stick to the local culture of textbooks, and give full play totextbooks autonomy of teachers.