A Study On Yan Fu's Education Thought And Practice

Yan Fu was a famous enlightenment thinker, philosopher as well as educator in modern times of China. Guided by western theory of evolution and social theory of organism, from the theoretical perspective of improving national quality education, he explored actively the way to save the nation from doom and ensure its survival, the way to make the country prosperous and strong in modern times of China. He put forward comparatively comprehensive modern thought and theory of education, thus made special contribution to education career of modern times of China.Yan Fu was well versed in both Chinese and western learning and had extensive knowledge. Branded profoundly by Chinese traditional thought and influenced deeply by western bourgeois enlightenment, his thought involved many fields with abundant content. He spent approximately 30 years in his life on education as instructor of Fuzhou Shipping School, general instructor of Beiyang Waterborne Forces School, supervisor of Anhui Higher School, president of Fudan University, president of Beijing University etc. Combining his advantage of mastering both Chinese and western theories and his experience of practice, reflecting rationally on the Chinese traditional academic culture and foreign education, Yan fu pointed out that the most basic way of making China prosperous and strong was to start with culture education, and for the first time he comparatively systematically made his advocacy of education thought which is"encouraging the people, enlightening the people, freshening the people". Simultaneously, Yan Fu analyzed profoundly the contributing factors of national deep-rooted bad habits from such aspects as system, education and national policy of politics and religion. He inquired concretely the ways and methods of improving national quality comprehensively, including implementation of universal education and advocacy of women education, family education, aesthetics education, industry education etc. On this basis Yan Fu made the proposition of establishing the education mode with modern characteristics, advocating scientific teaching methods and reform of traditional teaching content. Yan Fu's education thought not only had great propelling force in the process of Chinese education modernization, but also had reference significance to present education.