A Study On Zhang Zhi-dong's Thought Of Talent

During the later period of Qing Dynasty, under the dual stroke by the West and the internal peasant uprising ,the society faced serious challenges not only in military, economic, political aspect etc, but also in the ruling consciousness of -----the feudal traditional culture .Thus, the whole society sunk into crisis completely. In order to clear away these crises, maintain the feudal antocratic rule of Qing Dynasty and protect the traditional culture of the Chinese feudalism, as one important member of the ruling class and a Confucianist, Zhang Zhi-dong made great effort select, educate, recommend and use a lot of talented persons energetically. Seen from his thinking and practice about talent, it had individual character and epoch character obviously. At all his purpose was to hope the talented persons can make country strong ,bring benefits to the people,maintain the feudalism and protect the traditional culture. Because of these purposes, he requested the students to learn the science and technology of the West, at the same time, he insisted the student should hold fast to Chinese traditional culture, especially Confucian theory. He also requested the talented persons that he recommended and used not only to make country strong ,bring benefits to the people, but also to protect the Chinese traditional culture conscientionsly. For the sake of seeking talent to save the nation, he strongly established the traditional academies and the schools of modern style, advocated to reform the imperial examination system, recommend talent, send students,officials to go abroad to study, and made an exception to use talented persons, including using the foreigners. Seen from the whole, in his life, his guiding thought about the talent changed from "Master the Confucianism theory to administer country" to "Chinese learning as its system, Western doctrines as its application", in the process, the character of "administer country" in the "Master the Confucianism theory to administer country" had the key function. Before the change, he thought "the Confucianism theory" can "satisfy the mind" and can "administer country"; after the change, he thought the science and technology from the West could "administer country", but still thought "the Confucianism theory" could "satisfy the mind". Therefore, in the essentially, his thinking of the talented persons was consistent. It not only had epoch character obviously, but also had strongly traditional culture . So, it expessed progress, but had conservative ideas. It was the demand of the society that he lived in was was in a transforming period, and it was also the internal demand of his being a confucianism.