Overseas Students In Japan And Law Reformation At The End Of Qing Synasty

At the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of studying abroad was changed fromlearning western techniques to imitating the constitutionalism of Japan, and many officialswent to Japan for investigation in this field. The hot wave of going abroad to Janpa thuscame into being, Those who studied abroad took part in social activities actively, They didtranslation, ran newspapers and advocated democracy and law of bourgeois ideology. Thustheir activities contributed a lot to enlightening people and establishing law concept amongpeople, They were put in important positions and joined in the constitutional movement afterreturning from abroad. They founded constitutional organizations and ran newspapers andmagazines to propagate constitutionalism and local autonomy. They played important rolesin spreading constitutional thoughts by serving as constitutionalists or supporters ofconstitutionalists and even as leaders of policy making council. They took a great part inboth the constitution compiling committee and the law revising connittee, participateddirectly or indirectly in compiling or revising of the government constitution or law for othertrades and the reforming of police and prison governing system. They made greatcontribution to the modernization of chinese law system. They taught in local law schools,which made great contribution to propagate knowledge of law and fostering lawintelligences.The author tries to systematize and discusses this problem in three aspects. The first partmainly deals with the law propagation activities of the overseas students in Japan. Thesecond part documents the specific practice of those students in Japan. The third part makesan objective comment on their position in the process of law system reformation.