Comment On The Modern Missionary Schools In Shandong

The missionary schools in Shandong sprang up like mushrooms in 1960s and existed about 90 years. The missionary schools were special products under particular historical conditions. Because they were weaved with the complex social environment, it is hard to clearly evaluate the modern missionary schools' characteristics and influence.For a long time, there are two opposite opinions on the missionary schools .One is "cultural invasion" theory, the other is "modernization" theory, and how can we evaluate the missionary schools?This paper thoroughly analyzed the history of the missionary schools with the methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, based on former research results, I concluded three important clues. Firstly, the missionary schools were the invading means of the western imperial powers. Secondly, they were the products of western learning spreading to the east. Thirdly, the missionary schools also altered their features in the process of development. This paper will follow the above three clues, unify logic and historical methods, to explore the inner nature of the generation, evolution and extinction of missionary schools and reveal the historical condition of its development.Firstly, from the perspective of being parts of invading tools, the missionary schools were definitely had the feature of cultural invasion. Since the Opium War, the western imperial powers had been launching wars in China for years. The missionaries from the missionary schools took the role of not only directly participating in the wars, but also the ones who draft many unequal treaties with China, through this, they acquired educational privilege of opening up schools. That is to say, since the modern times, the spread of Christianity in Shandong have been interweaved with western imperial powers' invasion in Shandong Province. Consequently, though proclaiming their activities as "philanthropy", they inevitably encountered restriction of Shandong people. Secondly, in the process of the entrance of the western learning, the missionary schools' appearance in Shandong had their necessity. The gap between China and the western countries became bigger and bigger and China finally turned into an isolated feudal countries which had more and more malady. In this case, the invasion of the western culture made the poor feudal education in China collapse completely quickly. As the culture develops from its weak situation to the strong one, it was normal that missionary schools boomed up in Shandong. The missionary schools took the model of education system in Europe and American. It is the result of historical advancement as well as historical necessity that the educational contents focused on both the western learning and the religion at the beginning and separated gradually.At last, the missionary schools were also altered their characteristics in the process of development. The missionary schools were the product of invasion of western imperialist nations and harmed the sovereignty of Chinese education. So they encountered strongly resistance. In order to cause the government and the populace be willing to accept and also to dispel the Shandong people's resisting mood, the missionary schools had to reform and adjust their school way, this middle had experienced a winding repeated process. In this complex process, the missionary schools were secularized and gradually melted into the reform of Shandong .To some degree, they adapted to the development in modern Shandong.To conclude, the history development of missionary schools in Shandong reflected that China was increasingly becoming a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Meanwhile it also reflected the historical transiting track of China's pursuit of national independence and educational autonomy.