Research On Sun Xiaolou's Legal Education Thought

Sun Xiaolou's thought on legal education has strong academic value for studying the theoretic system and ideological origin of Modern China's legal education,enriching the history of Chinese Legal Philosophy.The legal education of Modern China derived from the institutional reform which was based on the introduction of western law education system,and took initial shape after the completing of legal system established by the Nationalist Government in the late 1930s.Sun Xiaolou is China's first jurist to systematically study modern legal education and publish China's first monograph on legal education Legal Education.He was praised as the trail breaker on the way of studying legal education by Wu Jingxiong and excellent legal educator by Alison W.Corner.Legal Education covers nearly all the contents of legal education,including the meaning and goal of legal education,the comparison of the legal education under Anglo-American Legal System and Civil Law System,faculty and logistics,admission requirements and curriculum,methods of jurisprudence research and practical teaching of law,night classes and academies of law,etc Thus,scholars regard Sun as the constructor of specialized system of legal education in the Republic of China and the pioneering figure in the history of Jurisprudence in ChinaIt will strongly inspire and influence the reform of legal education in modern times and the cultivation of outstanding law talents to study the forming background,theoretical system,practice process,role-playing,historic values,etc.China is comprehensively implementing the principle of governing by law,and it's an new era full of new opportunities and challenges for China's legal education:how to set high moral values while cultivating law talents,how to take the intention type development path focused on enhancing the quality of cultivated law talents,how to innovate a mode of law education with Chinese characteristics,how to make it clear the impact trans-disciplinary knowledge systems have on future legal education,etc.Under the similar circumstances when time was changing and disputes constantly arouse,Sun Xiaolou has built a comprehensively systematically theoretical system of legal education which investigated and demonstrated the political responsibility legal education has to take to cultivate law talents for the nation,how to keep the legal education national and social during the globalization of law,the necessity of law talents' keeping an eye on the national social interests,and the method of enhancing the quality of cultivated law talents from making admission requirements high to providing high quality teaching and sound teaching faculties,etc.The thesis comprehensively employs research methods like documentary analysis,research method of history of the legal society,comparative method,system analysis,etc.It contains six chapters except introduction and conclusionChapter 1 systematically explores the background of Sun Xiaolou's legal education thought including legal environment,geographical background,intellectual atmosphere and personal factors.After the accomplishment of modern legal system with Chinese characteristics represented by Six Codes,the legal construction of National Government with the distinctive character of independence needs a group of native jurists who are familiar with western legal civilization and nurtured by traditional Chinese culture more to thoroughly propel the legal construction.Not only can they better adapt to the autonomous reform of law,but also strongly intensify the autonomy of legal reform.The lack of law talents handicapped the independence of justice in the Republic of China most.Moreover,more and more law talents are needed to full the modern judiciary and operate the justice with the reform of justice going deeper and deeper.Shanghai,who stands at the forefront of the times,enjoys the biggest opening up and possess the most developed economy in China,attracts a large quantity of students studying Law abroad to work in Shanghai and helps the formation of practice groups of lawyers.They all have become the outstanding faculty of colleges of law and politics,promoting the rapid development of Shanghai's law education objectively.The second generation of jurists who have achieved western legal education and begun to stand out in the 1920s could not only employ western laws to transform traditional Chinese laws to push Chinese laws to a new level in Chinese context,but also develop discussions above legal thoughts and legal practices in various areas.Sun has devoted most of his time cultivating students in the School of Law of Soochow University.Inspired and influenced by the legal education thoughts of teachers and students of Soochow University,Sun has elaborately compiled two terms of single issues on legal education by his profound study and the systematical legal education thought has thus eventually established.Chapter 2 profoundly expounds Sun's main thoughts on legal education.Any theoretical system must have its own unique ideas as a guide,Sun Xiaolou's legal education thought is no exception.Sun Xiaolou's thought on legal education originated from his attention and improvement about problems existing in university education during the Republic of China era,such as:theoretical education with empty talk,scholar-bureaucratic gentleman education,utilitarian individualism education,westernized education with blind obedience.In regard to the significance of legal education,Sun Xiaolou relates it to the future of a country's rule of law,and hopes that those who deal with higher education in China can pay special attention to the problems in university education that hinder the development of our country's national character due to the insufficient understanding of national conditions.He also hopes that those who are occupied in legal education can consider legal education as a career and completely avoid the short-term utilitarian thought and behavior;hopes that the Prudential circle can realize the importance of research on legal education and make every effort to study legal education.Sun Xiaolou believes that the purpose of legal education is to train legal talents to serve the society and seek benefits for our country.Regard to what is legal talents,Sun Xiaolou thinks that they have to possess legal knowledge,legal morality and social common sense.For the problems occurring during the talent-training like more attention is paid to knowledge rather than practice,less identification is made for foreign concepts,lack of importance attached to moral education,inadequate research on sociology,Sun came up with a series of solutions like implementing the combination of theory and practice,reforming the curriculum system,compiling high quality teaching materials,changing teaching methodologies,strengthening morality education and the study on theoretical jurisprudence and sociology,which has important implications on today's legal talents cultivation.Chapter 3 concentrates on Sun's system design on legal education for the Republic of China.Sun Xiaolou designed the system of legal education in the republic of China from four aspects of the internationalization of law:the nationalization,the combination of theory and practice,the method of legal research and compilation of legal curriculum.In the process of law internationalization,legal education should base on national cultural and social reality of our country and make contributions to the development of our country's national culture development and social progress.Improve Chinese legal education on the basis of comparing the advantages of legal education between Civil Law System and Anglo-American Law System.The combination of theory and practice has strong historical progress.It not only has the historical background that the legal talents cultivation does not meet the need of abolishing the consular jurisdiction,cultivating legal talents with higher judicial wisdom and skills to relieve legal tension and so on,but also has the systematic connotation that using four key behaviors including case studying to realize the cooperation of theoretical discipline and experimental discipline.Research methods which are partial to theoretical,narrow,analytical have common problem,however,after the sharply rise of School of Social Law,the research methods of law tend to be practical,board and functional On the basis of investigating the law curriculum of twelve famous universities at home and abroad in detail,he not only found the five principles of course compilation that have been used up to now,but also putted forward that we should add courses such as legal ethics,accounting,theoretical jurisprudence and so on.These viewpoints aim at the current problems closely,accord with the current demand of historical period and still have many inspirations nowadays.Chapter 4 deeply studies Sun's quality control on legal talents cultivation.Sun Xiaolou controls the quality of the legal talents cultivation from three aspects:the admission threshold which is the initial link of talents cultivation quality;high-level professors who are the key of talents cultivation quality,and the facilities which support the talents cultivation quality.Affected by the "elitist" legal education in America and Law School of Soochow University,aiming to the current problem that unqualified filling in the law school,he put forward that,on the one hand,we have to limit the number of students to achieve the principal of selecting talents that pay attention to quality rather than amount and the result that teachers can focus on cultivating students easier.On the other hand,we should raise the admission requirements instead of extending the length of schooling,ensure that students should accomplish the study of nine basic subjects before they starting learning law.He also advocates that the corrective measures to limit the number of students should consider history,past achievements,the strength of different subjects,economic situation and other factors of each school to avoid one-size-fits-all model.Aiming to some professors who are in an unstable current situation and doing part-time jobs,he advocates that full-time professors who devote themselves into educational career are the key of improving legal talents cultivation quality.We have to reward these "national scholars" with improving the salary,ensuring the job,limiting the time and subject,improving the life.Law library,model court,discussion room and legal aid community are the necessary facility support to ensure the legal talents cultivation quality.Chapter five focus on the launching of practice of Sun Xiaolou's Legal Education Thought.The practice of Sun Xiaolou reflected his legal education thought as well as his practical wisdom in his term of vice minister of Law School of Soochow University and dean of Chaoyang college.He explained the persuasive reasons for the research of comparative law,and tried to persuade the government to reduce the interference in the teaching of comparative law in Law School of Soochow University.He pointed out that,the fundamental purpose of comparative law research is to improve Chinese law,which have brought great benefits to Law School of Soochow University,such as high employment,sufficient enrollment,prominent lawyers and magistrates,etc.The Soochow Model Court course have improved students' ability of practice in legal inference and argumentation with the guidance of abundant experienced teachers,which greatly helped the law teaching of Law School of Soochow University.When Sun executed as dean of Chaoyang college,the weakness of students practice ability had been strengthened.He actively promoted emphasizing in both practice and theory and hired judicial experienced jurists to form the judicial educational committee.He also introduced the model court and appropriately added the comparative law course.Sun Xiaolou was one of the earliest advocates of the academies of law.He also explained the reasons of existence and improvement measures of night classes of law at that time.Chapter Six thoroughly studies the value of Sun Xiaolou's Legal Education Thought.Sun Xiaolou's legal education thought was embedded with profound academic value,historical value and contemporary value.Compared with the major jurists of the same time,Sun Xiaolou,starting from the height of promoting and realizing he rule of law in the country,comprehensively constructs the theoretical system of law education in the Republic of China from the perspective of the theoretical constructors with more grand systematic thinking.Taking part in the work of revising the list of subjects in the Department of Legal Studies of the Ministry of Education of the National Government,he has played an active role in the nationwide introduction of compulsory courses in basic subjects of law,comparative law courses and the following five principles of curriculum development.The thought of legal education has also inspired and influenced the macro-education policy of Zhu Jiahua as Minister of Education.As the vice-president of Law School of Soochow University,he always adhered to teaching comparative law and actively promoted the construction of model courts and libraries.During the War of Resistance against Japan,he served as the dean of Chaoyang College,overcame the difficulties of running a school,tried his best to hire a high-level teaching team with a neat lineup,and carried out strict credit system,examination system and reward and punishment system.Sun Xiaolou's legal education thought is of great enlightenment and reference to further clarify the aim and orientation of today's legal education,establish and improve the mode of law education with Chinese characteristics,construct a system of guaranteeing the quality of training of legal personnel,build a high level of teachers,carry out a good interdisciplinary education,integrate legal legal ethics into the curriculum system and strengthen the construction of curriculum system,and improve legal research methods and practical teaching.