On The Relationship Between The Foreign Teachers Of The Tongwen Three Colleges And The Modernization Of Chinese Education

After the Opium War, Chinese education began the process of modernization in its transition from traditional period to modern period. The founding of the three colleges, namely the Imperial Tongwen College, Shanghai Tongwen College and Guangzhou Tongwen College, symbolized the beginning of the Westernized-education, which was the initialization of the modernization of Chinese education. It was for the purpose of cultivating translators for emergent use in negotiations with foreigners that the Qing Dynasty established the Tongwen Three Colleges.There are seventy-five foreign teachers at the Tongwen Three Colleges. Some foreign teachers were employed on the recommendation of foreign consuls, ministers or Robert Hart, the others being recruited directly, consisting of foreign officers, customer officers, missionaries and other foreigners in China. These foreign teachers mostly came from such modernized capitalist countries as Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Japan, etc. Because of their higher educational background, they were competent for the teaching.Under the special historical circumstances, foreign teachersinfluenced the process of the modernization of Chinese education. Their advanced education ideas had an impact on Chinese traditional educational system and promoted innovative concepts of education. They introduced western modern advanced grade system into China and founded the first curriculum system in the history of Chinese education. They changed traditional educational contents, concentrating on Western languages, Western technology and Western politics. They presented Western teaching methods to China, which changed Chinese traditional teaching methods and discarded the trend of neglecting practices. These not only could cultivate students' initiative and creation, but also promoted the relation among the teaching, social practice and real life. Hundreds of the graduates of the Colleges were all over the country and their occupations were in diplomacy, education, technology, military, politics and so on. Moreover, they solved the problem of the lacking of teaching staff in colleges and schools. These teachers made their contributions to the westernized-education in China and modernization of Chinese education.Certainly, there were some shortcomings in Tongwen Three Colleges' employment of the foreign teachers, for example, the teachers were of different levels, interference from missionaries, too' high salary, etc. These had some negative effects on Tongwen Three Colleges, but these provided us with historic lessons. On the first place, we must pay attention to foreign teacher' learning and abilities in teaching. Secondly, we must improve the management over foreign teacher. Lastly, we must adhere to the country's sovereignty. Only by avoiding exorbitantly assessment of the foreigners and their culture canwe make full use of foreign human resources. Furthermore, we must pay more attention to renewing ideas of education, improving system of education, and the relations between Chinese and western cultures as well. We must respect and act on educational principles as well.