Western Missionary Influence Of Modern Education In Guizhou

In early Qing Dynasty, Christian missionary activities were strictly prohibited. As aresult, most of the European Christian missionaries who had come to the Oriental landsfocused on the southeastern Asian countries and regions. Only a small number of them gotsecretly into the inland of China and their influence was quite limited. However, after theOpium \Var in 1840, the western powers paved a road with their cannons for theirmissionaries to swarm into China. Using their privileges, they rapidly expanded theiractivities from the coastal areas to the inland, from cities to the countryside and from thesouth to the north of China.Guizhou is a province with relatively backward economy and culture, located on theYunnan-Guizhou Plateau of southwestern China and inhabited by many ethnic minorities inaddition to Hans. The western Christian Churches attached great attention to Guizhou whilethey were trying to increase their influences in the inland provinces of China. They were quiteactive in the areas inhabited by the ethnic minorities as well as in Han-inhabited areas. Boththe Catholic and Protestant Churches gained a rapid development in the province, with thelatter having a greater influence. In the early 20th century, the Protestant Church established aparish in northwestern Guizhou, where they had about 90,000 believers and 80 churches. Inorder to convert more people into Christians, the missionaries were very active in starting andrLlnning schools in Guizhou.Following the Church's missionary policy of "Schools should be available whereverthere are churches", the European Christian missionaries made painstaking efforts in settingup schools in various places. Their schools were of a new type and formed a complete system,including kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, and colleges. In addition to3ordinary education, they also offered vocational education, special education and socialeducation. There were various regulations to standardize the school system, management,teach staff training courses and class-hour number. The elicitation method of teaching wasadvocated and practiced in their schools, trying to integrate theory with practice. In theChurch School at Shimenkan, Weining County, even bilingual teaching was adopted. That isthe most influential one of the Church schools in Guizhou. Owing to the fact that manygraduates of that school went on to study in technical schools and colleges, and some becamepost-graduates or even Ph. D. Students, Shimenkan was, therefore, called at that time "theregion with highest culture in the Miao-inhabited areas in southwestern China."While the aim of the European missionaries in their efforts to initiate education inGuizhou was to engage cultural and educational aggression against China and imposespiritual enslavement over the Chinese people so as to aid the military and economicaggression against China by the imperialists, the education promoted by them was of relativeprogressiveness as compared with the traditional Chinese education in the aspects of thetrainees, content, targets, and approaches of teaching. Objectively, they popularized thewestern science and promoted the modernization of education in China as well as in Guizhou.The present thesis will present the view points of the author in the following respects:1.Why to choose this topic for research?As everybody knows, the study of education cannot be done without the study of thehistory of education, and the study of the history of education cannot be done withoutthe study and investigation of the education in specific regions. However, the previousdiscussions made at home and abroad of the educational work by the Europeanmissionaries in Guizhou seemed scattered and remained on the surface of the matter.The present thesi...