On The Self-adjustment Of Christian Universities

After 1920s, Christian universities made improved greatly both in academic level, teaching quality and its indigenousition, professionalization and secularization. And their roles also changed greatly-from a tool of preach into an important part of Chinese modern higher education. What on earth made Christian university make change? The answer before fell on the external pressure of Chinese society, without mentioning the influence of self-adjustment mechanism exists in Christianity. Such an answer is obviously one-sided. In fact both exterior and interior factors played an important role in the reform of Christian university after 1920s. Before Anti-Christianity Movement, Burton Commission 's trip to China in 1921 serves as a good example. Using the theory of cultural exchange, this thesis analyzed the suggestion of Burton Commission given to Christian university and its influence on them. Based on the study of the reason, formation and process of the Commission trip to China, the thesis came to a conclusion that the transformation of the role of Christian universities after 1920s is a kind of expediency forced by Chinese social environment, and it's also a result of the missionaries' deepened understanding of Chinese society and culture. Burton Commission played a very active role in the reform of Christian universities. So the Christian university made self-adjustment and turned danger onto safety.The thesis includes four parts except preface and conclusion.Part one tried to analyze the reason of Burton Commission's trip to China. They proved to be the increasingly worsened exterior situation (including three aspects:(l) The increasingly raising nationalism movement; (2) The new tendency of rationalism; (3) The bloom of Chinese native university) and internaldivergence between modem missionary and traditional missionary of the Christian universities.Part two described the relevance circumstances of Burton Commission 's trip to China, including three aspects: (1) The formation of Burton Commission;(2) The process of investigation in China.Part three explored the principles of adjusting Christian education proposed by Burton Commission: "Being more efficient, more Christianized, more Chinese", and gave a detailed introduction of suggestion of adjustment proposed by Burton Commission to Christian universities.Part four inquires into the influence of Burton Commission's suggestion on the adjustment of Christian universities. Generally it can be divided into three parts: (1) The increase of the quality; (2) The change of the religious policy from "using force" into "being flexible"; (3) being more and more Chinese.