The Research On Fang Zhiwu’s Educational Thoughts

Fang Zhiwu is one of the important native educators in Anhui’s history ofmodern times. He was ever a scholar in the end of the Qing Dynasty. Later, tosupport his family, he had to serve as a tutor of a private family for eight years.During the period of Wu Rulun establishing Tongcheng middle school, he wasinvited to help handling the school affairs as one of the “five towns’ senior”.After that, he made Chen Duxiu’s acquaintance, ran Anhui Suhua Newspapertogether with him, and served on the chief editor of education section. In thesame year, he studied accelerated normal education in Japan and took charge ofWuhu accelerated normal school when he returned. In1924, he resigned fromoffice and returned to his native place for the purpose of founding Fushanmiddle school, which had contributed a lot to the local rurual education. Thetheoretical basises of Fang Zhiwu’s educational thoughts include the traditionalculture of Confucianism, the thought trends of educating for saving countrybetween the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic of China, and also thewestern educational notion of pragmatism. His lifelong educational aim is“opening people’s wisdom, saving the nation from subjugation and ensuring itssurvival”. Fang Zhiwu’s educational thought system mainly covers familyeducation, primary education and secondary schooling. Fang Zhiwu valued thebasic position of family education, which was consisted of moral education,intellectual education, physical education and female education. He stronglycriticized the traditional primary education, reaffirmed the fundamental role ofit, and also proposed a series of specific methods for innovating primaryeducation. He advocated the selection of the location of secondary school needemphasize the influence of environment factors and that School ManagementCommittees and course instructors should have a very clear appreciation of theart of education besides both the political integrity and ability. These thoughts have bright characteristics of two respects:modernism and nationalism. FangZhiwu’s educational thought is of great significance and reference value for thegeneration mechanism of native educators.