| Popular Education was a kind of social education,which taught ordinary people simple and easy-to-understand common sense in a popular and intuitive way to enhance the people's national concept,national consciousness,scientific common sense,and to reform social customs.Popular education began in the late Qing Dynasty,flourished in the early Republic of China,and declined in the 1920s.It was the product of the modern Chinese government and intellectuals discussing strategies to save the country through education under the environment of internal and external troubles.At the same time,in the context of building a modern country,Popular education was committed to shaping the bottom people who were previously excluded from the education system into qualified citizens of the country,drawing a picture of the beginning stage of modern Chinese mass education.During the period of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China,people of insight in Jiangsu took the lead in launching a long-lasting and far-reaching popular education practice in the country.Modern Popular Education in Jiangsu had experienced a process of rise,development and decline.In this process of changing,Popular Education had gradually become a system in terms of administrative organization and practice.The administrative system of Popular Education had grown from chaos to system,and laid the foundation of management for the smooth implementation of Popular education in the local area The practice of Popular Education gradually expanded from reading newspapers,literacy,and lectures in the late Qing Dynasty to the creation of a comprehensive three-dimensional education network that met the actual needs of the people,including lectures,exhibitions,literacy,and life-saving skills teaching in the Republic of China.The participants of Popular Education practices also expanded from the"single solo" of local people in the late Qing Dynasty to the establishment of various social groups and special Popular Education venues in the Republic of China.Although Popular Education was eventually replaced by Mass Education due to various reasons,its ideas and ways of developing social education had enlightenment and mirroring effects on the follow-up development of public education.The planning of Popular Education groups even influenced the development direction and content of Jiangsu Popular Education during the Republic of China.The Shanghai Popular Education Research Association,led by the famous popular educator Wu Da,spread the concept of Popular Education through extensive recruitment of members,conferences,and publication of journals,and used the journal to solicit suggestions on basic issues of Popular Education development from all over the country to guide all walks of life to discuss on the development path of Popular Education,popularize the concept of Popular Education.Although the Shanghai Popular Education Research Association had not existed for a long time,its contribution to Popular Education cannot be ignored.Jiangsu Education Association tried to make Popular Education proposals known to the government,and mobilize people to participate in Popular Education practices,leading the trend of Popular Education in more than ten years in the Republic of China.The Popular Education Research Association under the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association had focused on the practical problems of Popular Education in the six consecutive annual conferences,so that these problems could be presented,discussed,and even resolved,which developed Popular Education in the grassroots society.The theoretical discussion and practical activities of Popular Education groups promoted the in-depth and orderly development of Popular Education in Jiangsu,and further spread the concept of shaping the nation.Jiangsu popular newspapers and periodicals have participated in shaping the concept of the people in the dissemination of national concepts,common sense of health,etc.,and seeking self-development adjustment In order to cultivate the concept of modern citizens,popular newspapers and periodicals used a lot of space to guide the public to understand "If you want to love yourself,first love your country",and do "patriotic affairs" was to "do your duty" in daily life.At the same time,in order to continue to attract readers and maintain the survival of the newspaper industry,popular newspapers and periodicals also catered to readers' interests,mixed with relaxed,leisure,and entertaining content.As collocated with the popular and casual contents and scattered in every page of the newspaper,grand national theme was downplayed.It not only showed the hidden intent of popular newspapers to shape the people,but also met the entertainment needs of the readers.The dissemination on the health knowledge showed the efforts and influence of popular newspapers in the process of disseminating health concepts to the people.Under the interpretation of popular newspapers,the distance between the people and the country had been shortened,and the people's personal health was equivalent to the health of the country's organism,and the people and the country had been built into a mutually dependent relationship.School-style Popular Education in Jiangsu used textbooks to systematically enlighten the people and spread national knowledge.In the Late Qing Dynasty,the Jiangsu government and individuals set up simple literacy schools to try to cultivate constitutional citizens.At the beginning of the Republic of China,the intellectuals,like Dong Jingan,used the "600-character"Popular Education series and opened Popular Education schools to popularize national knowledge to the older out of schools.Non-governmental organizations had also established popular evening schools that allowed the people to acquire skill,and guided the people to increase their national knowledge on the basis of improving their ability to earn a living,increase their political consciousness,and undertake their national obligations.The development of school-style Popular Education in Jiangsu area reflected the gradual deepening of the government and intellectuals' thinking on Popular Education,highlighted the popular orientation of popularizing national knowledge,and was the new requirement of Popular Education for local economic and social development.The Jiangsu Popular Education Museums were Chinese-style national common sense popularization venue established on the basis of adopting Japanese experience.The Popular Education Museums eliminated the gap between the traditional elite cultural space and the mass cultural space by selecting the Confucian Temple as their location,and reflected the original purpose of Popular Education.The general knowledge demonstrations and roving lectures in the Popular Education Museums enabled the public to accept the popularization of national knowledge in the process of "hearing the sound of the Museums".The exhibition in the Popular Education Museums guided the public to gain common sense in the process of "seeing the exhibitions in the Museums".The government and intellectuals in Jiangsu Province took the lead in the country to try to establish Popular Education Museums.The enlightenment positioning and the establishment of the organizational system of the Museums had a deep influence on other parts of the country,and they also enlightened people to construct the Mass Education center.However,the economic,personnel,and cognitive difficulties had also restricted the education function of the Popular Education Museums in Jiangsu.In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China,popular educators in Jiangsu area carried out targeted Popular Education practices in combination with the local situation under thetheme of the era of shaping the nation.It was guided by civil forces,supported by official policies,upheld a bottom-level perspective,and useda large number of Popular Education media to cultivate citizens with national concepts and modern common sense.Popular education took the popularization of national concepts,national consciousness,and scientific common sense as the entry point for national shaping and knowledge enlightenment.It incorporated the lower classes into the nation-state community,gave them political attributes,and started the process of popularizing national education.Under the background of constructing a nation-state,Popular Education embodied an instrumental role.While shaping the nation,it also highlighted the importance of the people in the country and accelerated the advent of the popular era. |
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