The Management Of The Chinese Textbooks By The Central Executive Organ Of Education In The Late Qing Dynasty And The Early Republic Of China

Between the late Qing and the early Republic of China, an irreversible wave of educational reforms on the building of schools and advocating practical knowledge, as well as an enthusiasm for editing and translating textbooks in new styles, started around the whole nation. Founded in 1898, The Imperial University, which also managed new style education in the whole country as the central executive organ of education, ended the managing of new style schools by the primary government. Although the governors'attitude towards new style textbooks was cautious, conservative and passive, they realized to some extent the shortage of traditional textbooks. Moreover they realized the presence of a scientific influence on the new style textbooks, therefore they tried to remove old patterns for editing and translating, and explored new subject systems. We can objectively state that the establishment of the Imperial University provided the basis for the development in common education, in the systematization and standardization of common education, as well as providing the stage for popularization, scientific editing and translating new style textbooks.In 1905, the Branch of Education, the official and specialized central executive organ of education was established in China. It defined the essential fundamentals of editing and translating textbooks. The Branch's affiliated editing, translating and publishing agency, by imitating the editing styles of the Civilization Publishing House and the Commercial Press, edited textbooks for elementary and middle schools. It underwent lots of criticism by many members of the society for the quality of textbooks. The Textbooks Examining Department, set up in the Education Branch, was in charge of examining and checking textbooks. The status of private-run publishing organizations also increasingly consolidated, and as a result, there was a strong development both officially edited textbooks and privately edited textbooks.After the foundation of the Republic of China, The Ministry of Education of Nanjing's provisional government criticized the Qing textbooks, and vigorously established its own textbooks. It thus promoted modern textbooks to reach a brand new phase and providing new impetus for the development of textbooks. On September 2nd 1912, the Ministry of Education issued new education goals. The same year on September 13th, the Ministry of Education issued new"regulations for examining textbooks". All Provincial Committees for examining textbooks could select their own textbooks among those examined by the Ministry of Education, thus greatly encouraging the private editing of textbooks.After Yuan Shi kai came to power, a series of reversal ordinances were issued, denying the education ideas formed in the first year of the Republic of China. In January 1941, the Ministry of Education ordered that committees in all provinces stopped examining textbooks, and publicly announced"revised regulations for examining textbooks", which caused an enormous change on the macro-control of examining rules and on the examining goals with respect to the recent past. The reversal thought of Yuan Shi-kai's government restrained the modernization process of Chinese textbooks.As the political power changed frequently in the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China, different political powers tried to exert their power on editing and translating textbooks. The Privately run Textbook Publishing House survived among the Officially run Publishing Organization, and continually adjusted itself to the Central Executive Organ of Education. Their main work included: first, every private publishing house tried their best to get the support of the Central Executive Organ of Education in order to obtain a favorable living and developing environment; secondly, for promoting the modernization process of newly style textbooks, they thoroughly followed their editing ideas.