| Chen Duxiu(1879-1942)was a well-known statesman and a thinker as well as an influential educator for the modernization of China' s education in Modern Chinese history of his time. He was famous for his starting the magzine "Youth" (remaned as "New Youth" the following year) and being its chief editor .It was also known to us that it was he who led the "May 4 th" New culture movement in 1915. After the birth of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921, he worked as general secretary of the CCP for the following 5 years. In 1927, he was removed from the post after the "August 7 th Meeting" , and in 1929 he was dismissed from the CCP and became a member of "Tuo" group to split the CCP. The researcheon Chen' thought have been done more on the sphere of political activities than on that of education thought, mostly because his views on politics and society had great impact on CCP and its organization; and what' more, he himself had something to do with the failure of the revolution from 1924 to 1927. However, education, which plays an important role in social change, always has close relationship with politics, economy and other social phenomena. As an educator with political characteristics appearing in the transitional period of society, his education thought, which reflected the rising and development of thoughts about education on democracy and science in his time and embodied the features of earlier Marxists' education thoughts in China is distinctive. For the reasons mentioned above, it is meaningful to explore Chen' s education thought.Analysis and probe on Chen' s education thought will be made in this article, which are divided into four parts: The first part is about Chen' s education thought' s coming into being, in which the process of his education thought' s formation is inquired, mainly by analyzing the historical background in which his education thought sprouted and grew and by analyzing the impacts that western democracy and Marxism had on his thoughts. In the second part, his educational activities are explored in detail and his theory of education practice is summarized, mainly concentrating on such activities as his running newspapers, his innovating the arts in Beijing University and the reformabout education in Guang Dong province. The third part is about the exploration of new education philosophy carried out by Chen himself. Chen' s "Four principles" of new education, his advocating to learn from western education and to necessarily combine education with society are concretely analysed, mainly according to his accounts of the nature and properties of education, his education policy and his view point on arrangement of education contents. It is certain that his policy of full development on morality, mentality and physical, his active attitude towards learning from the west and his theory on applying basic rules of Marxism to developing China' s education are positive. In the last part, the following conclusions are drawn from Chen' s contributions to new education in China. The conclusions are as follows:Chen' s education thought had its distinctive characteristics of his time as well as its innovative virtue.He enlarged the theory of education, that was, education belongs to superstructure and its development should be instructed by socialism.He put emphasis on developing potential intelligence of people and reshaping the personality of people.He brought forth the notion of cultivating individuality and advocated enlighting method of teaching.Also in this part, Chen' s weakpoints as an educator are pointed out. His idea that education depends on politics is criticized. Finally the general evaluation on Chen' s education thought is given.Chen Duxiu was an educator with political characteristics of the transitional period in Modern Chinese history. The prerequisite of Chen' s education thought was to rebuild the society; The goal of his education thought was to improve the quality of people; Meanwhile, his education thought had been changing with his revolutiona...
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