Research On The Transformation Of National Traditions In Chinese Higher Education

For the first time,this study proposes to differentiate Chinese higher education tradition by using national tradition,scientific tradition and popular tradition.The main purpose of this paper is to study the connotations,features and its historical experience of the national tradition of higher education in China,as well as how to achieve creative transformation in the historical process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.From the point of view of creative transformation,it is to think about what to transform,why to transform,how to transform and what it will turn to.As an interdisciplinary and multi-domain research,this paper attempts to understand and grasp Chinese higher education tradition from a philosophical point of view on the basis of textual research and historical narration,so as to achieve the interaction between theoretical interpretation and historical textual research,the integration of sympathetic and objective understanding,and the combination of macro-narrative and micro-perspective views.The starting point of this study is to examine the formation and change of higher education tradition in the context of the evolution of civilization.It divides the change and development of tradition into three modes: natural transformation of single tradition,natural transformation of multiple tradition and passive transformation of multiple tradition.In this way,the development of Chinese higher education over 4000 years can be divided into three stages.The first stage is a single traditional mode of natural transformation,which began in the Shun periods and entered into the meridian in the Zhou Dynasty.It has formed a unified tradition of learning in the government and a tradition of knowing human relations as teaching objective with six arts education as its teaching content.It has become the two original genes that have influenced Chinese society deeply and tremendously in the past two thousand years.It made striking contrast with the traditional university autonomy and academic freedom of western higher education.The second stage is a natural transformation mode under the multiple tradition.Thisis the variation of the original gene of the national tradition of higher education after the introduction of Buddhism and the long-term natural integration with Buddhist education,forming a "temple school" mode characterized by Confucius worship.At the same time,it stripped and condensed the core part of the national tradition of higher education,making the doctrines of Duke of Zhou and Confucius into the doctrines of Confucius and Mencius.The third stage is the passive transformation mode under the multiple tradition,which is caused by the strong invasion of Western culture.It forms the coexistence of scientific tradition,popular tradition and national tradition.Before Liberation,it was dominated by the western scientific tradition,and after liberation,the popular tradition.However,almost all the primitive and mutated genes of national tradition have been destroyed and slipped into a weak position.The three modes show different features of development.The single traditional mode of natural transformation is gradual,self-ease and cumulative development.The natural transformation mode of multiple tradition also takes on a gradual progressive process of advancing from the shallower to the deeper and from the outside to the inside,in which both the host and the guest maintain an open and inclusive attitude and learn from each other's strengths to complement each other's weaknesses.The host culture needs to adhere to the subjective position in order to form a self-centered evolution result.The passive transformation mode of multiple tradition is presented as a kind of difficult balance of the transforming subject under multiple missions and challenges.As the development stage and space are severely squeezed,the creation of internal motivation becomes the key to get rid of the passive state.Therefore,the difference of the three transformation modes is,in the final analysis,the one between the traditional active and passive,natural and forced.The so-called creative transformation is how to re-stimulate the initiative and vitality of the tradition after the interruption of its natural evolution,so as to liberate it not only from the passive transformation of the "he" state,but also from the natural transformation of the "blind" state,and then develop into a new stage of conscious creation of its own history.With regard to the creative transformation of the national tradition of highereducation,the relationship between the modernization of higher education and the national tradition should be two-way construction and mutual regulation.This is the conclusion that this paper draws on and modifies Aristotle's theory of formal material.At the same time,different from other studies,this study sets out from “The Doctrine of the Mean” of Zisi,and regards the “educational triangle of Zisi”(“What Heaven has conferred is called THE NATURE;an accordance with this nature is called THE PATH of duty;the regulation of this path is called INSTRUCTION.”),proposed by “The Doctrine of the Mean”,and the essence of Confucius education(Adjust the great invariable relations of mankind,establish the great fundamental virtues of humanity,and knowing the transforming and nurturing operations of Heaven and Earth)it reveals as the classical expressions of the national tradition of higher education.Through the Confucius' determination and the further refinement in "The Doctrine of the Mean",the original genes of the national tradition show more theoretical and systematic characteristics.According to the characteristics of the modernization of Western higher education(following the project of Enlightenment,the two-kind-knowledge complementarity,"returning to" the axis civilization and the differentiation of university functions),Spring and Autumn warring States period was the Axis Period of civilization of China,and education under“the doctrine of the mean” should be the object of transformation.Therefore,the path to realize the creative transformation of the national tradition of higher education,is to accept and transcend the enlightenment spirit,to adopt the method of mutual interpretation between China and the West,and to constantly respond to the needs of reality,and thus to form a new mode of “three universality-oriented principles”integration with "The Doctrine of the Mean" as the foundation and the sages and men of virtue as the ancestors.This should be seen as the lines China's higher education ought to say while moving closer to center stage of the world and it should also become a new pattern of universities with Chinese characteristics which is rooted in the land of China.