A Study On The Philosophy And Practice Of Liberal Education At British Colonial College Of North America

From the 16 th century,European colonists began to colonize the north American continent,and by 1763,13 British colonies had been established.In these colonies,Anglo-white people were the majority of the population,and the British institutions,customs,language and way of life determined the tone of north American culture.Openness and inclusiveness were the general characteristics of colonial society.In the early formation of the colony,the power of religious groups had an important impact on the society at that time,especially the Puritan immigrants had a significant impact on the colonial society.The opening of the first Harvard college in the colony was an educational response to the Puritan rational and practical spirit.Other colleges in the British north American colonies were established on the basis of meeting the needs of religious,political,economic and other social development at that time.Between the birth of Harvard college in the new world in 1636 and the American revolution in 1776,nine colleges were founded in the British north American colonies.These colleges were established not only to meet the needs of the local community,but more importantly for the pastoral and missionary needs of different Christian denominations.The New England colonists,in particular,aspired to establish a school on a hill as part of their social ideal of a city on a hill.In the history of western education,liberal education,as a orthodox educational concept,originated in ancient Greece and grew up in ancient Rome.After the baptism of medieval theology and the reform and development of Renaissance humanist thinkers,it was transplanted to the north American continent by English protestants.The adoption of liberal education by colonial colleges was based on a Puritan rational view of university education as part of a large and important religious and political vision of society.In the vast wilderness of the colonies,the promotion of religious doctrine,the training of pious and learned religious ministers to lead the church in the conversion of the devout soul,and the training of public servants for the local community became an essential and universal purpose.The liberal education organized and put forward by ancient Greece is considered as the sum of all knowledge and the most appropriate education to fulfill the highest mission of religious theology.They adopted the European tradition of liberal education as the educational concept of colonial colleges to train excellent young people to achieve their educational purposes.Due to the open and inclusive external environment of the colony at that time,liberal education was also easy to implement and carry out,so the nine colleges all adopted the idea of liberal education to run schools.In the middle and late period of the colonies,with the spread of the rational and scientific thoughts of the enlightenment and the formation of the native culture of the colonies,the concept of liberal education gradually changed.The enlightenment thought quickly spread in the colonies and greatly liberated people's thoughts.This idea of advocating democracy and freedom was in line with the practical spirit of the colonies.A sense of freedom,rationality,science and practicality quickly became the consensus of the colonial society in North America in the 18 th century.With the development of cultural diversity,practical and rational become the most notable features of that era,liberal education idea and practical idea and thought the combination of religious tolerance,endowed with the characteristics of higher education in the United States liberal education organically grown in colonial era,with the classical humanism education toward freedom secular and practical for the direction of the whole nation.Liberal education has a broader and more open educational connotation,that is,it has democratic characteristics and highly inclusive connotation and open characteristics of the times.In the early days of the colonial college,the seven liberal arts and biblical theology,inherited from the middle ages,were adopted as a whole.The early courses of the college objectively reflect the knowledge system of liberal education which has been advocated for a long time and is also the inheritance of the western traditional knowledge.The course emphasizes the study of medieval traditional classical language,philosophy,literature and theology.The course emphasizes the traditional medieval classical language,philosophy,literature and the study of theological knowledge.The teaching method focuses on the speculative methods such as debate and speech,which did not change fundamentally until the end of the 17 th century.After the mid-18 th century,with the development of society and the influence of the enlightenment,liberal education expanded its connotation of development.The curriculum of colonial college expanded some new subjects,including mathematics,modern language and literature,and natural science(astronomy,physics and chemistry).Practical courses of a non-classical nature have begun to make progress.In this trend,which is a useful complement to the inheritance of ancient cultural heritage,liberal education courses are no longer dominated by religion and classical knowledge,but expand a wide range of scientific and practical subjects.In the later period of the colony,influenced by the independence movement,the education of the colonial college paid more attention to political science and ethics.In the later period of the colony,influenced by the independence movement,the education of the colonial college paid more attention to political science and ethics.With the development of the society,liberal education reflects the characteristics of keeping pace with the times.These nine colonial colleges made an important contribution to the social development at that time and the later development of American higher education.On the one hand,the outstanding talents cultivated by the colonial colleges cultivated the learned and pious clergy and the elite talents who led the social development for the society at that time.More importantly,they prepared a group of political leaders for the American independence movement and made outstanding contributions to the liberation of the colonial people and the founding of the United States.On the other hand,in the development of a century and a half,colonial college has explored a path suitable for the development of American higher education.Firstly,it lays a profound cultural foundation for the general education of higher education localization after the founding of the United States.Secondly,it laid an important foundation for the idea of higher education serving the society.Third,American universities have created the external governance model in management,which is gradually combined with the academic legal person system and forms the management model of university board of trustees with American characteristics.It is an important prerequisite to understand the characteristics of American higher education to deeply study the concept and practice of liberal education in colonial college of North America.