Longing For Modernity

Some provident Chinese people had wakened from the deeply sleepy after the Opium War. They tried time and time again with the aim to save the nation from subjugation and ensure its survival by learning from the West, including Wei yuan and Lin Zexu taking their first sight on the West. Westernization Movement aiming at learning from West adversaries for the purpose of defeating. The reformists' constitutional reform and modernization. However, all of the great attempts suffered a crush. After that, the new capital ist class represented by Cai Yuanpei went on searching for the solution to the problem. They set all hope on education.Studying the developing process of modernity in Cai Yuanpei 's educational idea can not only reflect how traditional education waking for modern education, but also provide us the ideological resource and intellectual guidance for education practice at present.This article consists of two parts. The first part rationalizes the developing process of Cai Yuanpei's education idea by 4 stages: stage â…  is the period of contacting with Western learning and admired its modernity;stage â…¡ is a mature period when he was presented of education department. During this time, Cai Yuanpei had formed the ideological system of educational modernity;stage â…¢ is the period when Cai Yuanpei cultivated modern peking university and took his educational modernity idea into practice;stage â…£ is a floow-up period for his educational modernity. The second part emphasis on the en Iightenment of Cai Yuanpei's educational modernity idea to our contemporary educational practice.