Cultural Character Of Chinese Universities - A Historical Perspective

From cultural perspective, the Chinese university is not just a social institution which integrating the function of teaching, scientific research and social service transplanted from the western university model, but a culture entity which is based on Chinese culture and different from any other national university institutions. According to this, "Chinese university’s cultural character" can be defined as Chinese universities’ fundamental characteristic, which is based on the Chinese culture and treating "inheritors of Chinese culture" as its practical subject. This paper regard the formation mechanism of Chinese university’s cultural character-"Chinese culture-’inheritors of Chinese culture’ -Chinese university" as the basic analytic framework and rooted in the long historical and cultural tradition of Chinese society and the special social and cultural background of modern China In addition, the basic idea of this study is to analyze the external characteristic of the Chinese universities’ cultural characteristic and the internal causes of why the Chinese universities’ cultural characteristic is this and can until today through the historical investigation into the cultural character of "inheritors of Chinese culture".Form a historical perspective, this paper combed, analyzed, and summarized the development venation of Chinese university’s cultural character during the social change since the modern times. This paper pays much attention to the fate of Chinese culture during the social change in different historical periods, which is also called the social background of Chinese university’s cultural character,and pays more attention to the analysis of cultural and university concepts carried by the "living" Chinese culture, which is also called the "inheritors of Chinese culture" of Chinese university’s cultural character, and summarizing the specific contents of Chinese universities’ cultural character under the influence of the "living" Chinese culture. Furthermore, this paper also covers the cultural interpretation of several specific university in different historical periods. Besides, this research comprises the social background, concrete representation, and formation mechanism of Chinese university’s cultural character in four stages-late Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China, the first seventeen years since the foundation of new China and since the reform and opening up. Based on the historical characteristic of Chinese universities’ cultural character, this paper, on the whole, summarizes Chinese universities’ development stage as follows:"Chinese-Style University" Stage:From the born of Chinese university to the foundation of Republic of China, Chinese universities in this period are built mainly for safeguarding the political power of late Qing dynasty and were controlled by the gentleman on officialdom in feudal late Qing dynasty. More importantly, the cultural character in this stage is the richest, which was represented by "Be loyal to the monarch and respect Confucius", "Scholar is officer" and "Confucian classics-based"."Chinese University" Stage:The whole period of Republic of China, Chinese universities’cultural character showed a better development trend under the confliction and blending of the Eastern and Western cultures. The character showed some typical characteristics like "Self-discipline and social commitment", "Compatible with the difference", "Absorb the Chinese humanities and the western science" and "the whole world as one community "and so on."University with Chinese Character" Stage:First seventeen years since the foundation of New China, Chinese universities possess strong revolutionary and political character because of government’s intervention force. The main characters are "people-oriented", "universities are governed by the party" and "ideological revolution"."University in Chinese Mode" Stage:A possible mode which is brewing and taking shape since the Reform and Opening up. A better cultural development tendency appeared preliminary, which characterized by "Students-oriented", "Humanity is the basis of self-independence", "Indifferent to fame and wealth "and so on.Now, Chinese universities are in the transition stage between "University with Chinese Character" Stage and "University in Chinese Mode "Stage. Through historic demonstration, it is enough prove that Chinese university’s cultural character is traditional-created and artificial-based. In a word, the culture character of Chinese university almost always there from the late Qing Dynasty,even if appear the "turning" and the "alienation".The formation and development of Chinese university’s cultural character, as the product in specific historical era, has both time rationality and historic limitations. When mentioned Chinese university’s cultural character, besides "the understanding of sympathy", there is an increasing necessity for "value clarification" which can correct the distortion and various kinds of extreme tendency from the historical wave. According to the historical reflection:the particular contradictory between Chinese culture and Western culture, the positive factors and negative factors in the Chinese, and between the intellectuals and the government are the main contradictory in the process of the formation of personality of Chinese university’s culture character. Meanwhile, in itself, Chinese university’s cultural characteristic remain essentially the same despite all apparent changes which can be interpreted in the basic characteristics of Chinese culture like "moral standard", "humanistic spirit", "gentleman spirit", and so on. In a word, the historical experience of the Chinese university’s cultural character lies in the coordination of various special contradictions while sticking to the core values of Chinese culture as much as possible. In theory, ideal type of Chinese university’s cultural character is composed of all kinds of "good" characteristics of Chinese culture and "university-academics -government" is a kind of trinity which constitutes a special field for the formation and development of Chinese university’s cultural character. And more importantly, the possibility of realizing the ideal Chinese university’s cultural character is decided by the degree to coordinate the relationship among the three main bodies. If the internal essence of the ideal type of Chinese university’s cultural character could refer to the "good" cultural belief, and in order to shape this ideal character, then, the independence and cooperation of universities, academics and government can be used as the external means. When "free scholars" lead Chinese universities’, the means will dominates the purpose and the ideal Chinese university’s cultural character and the real Chinese university model will possible. On the contrary, when government governed universities while domineering over academics, the cultural character will be political and the real Chinese universities will not come true.