The Study On Cai Yuanpei’s Nationalism Thoughts

Cai Yuanpei was an outstanding bourgeois democracy revolutionist and educatorin modern China, and his ideas and achievements is a monument in the development ofmodern China. Nationalist ideology plays an important role in Cai Yunpei’s ideologicalsystem, In order to achieve his “Education National Salvation”, he spent whole life toradical reform of the education system to make nation’s wealthy and prosperouseness,and to change the internal disorder and foreign invasion situation.This paper consists of three chapters:The first chapter is mainly about the background in and cause analysis of theformation of Cai Yuanpei’s nationalism. In this part, the author believe that theformation of nationalism of Cai Yuanpei’s are following the four reasons. First is thenational crisis, and the internal disorder and foreign invasion historical background.Second is the impact of the traditional Confucianism “administration and pragmatism”.Third, the modern Western political thought accepted when he study and Francetheprovided his nationalism with ideological resources. Forth is the influence of SunZhongshan and Tao Chengzhang on him.The second chapter is to discuss the main content of Cai Yuapei’s nationalism. CaiYuanpei express his nationalist ideas primarily through three aspects. The first is topromote national trait reconstruction, require use the moral education to cultivatehealthy personality and use the aesthetic education to build a national spirit. The secondis the political appeal of the modern nation-state, which is seen the education as a wayto achieve freedom and democracy, tries to improve the level of national morality andknowledge to achieve the purpose of reengineering nation revival. The third is build aprosperous nation, the way is use the materialism education to rich nation and use themilitary and civilian education to strong nation.The third chapter is to analyze the characteristics of Cai Yuanpei’s nationalism. Theauthor believe that the Cai Yuanpei’s nationalism has duality, which means that thenationalism and the democracy coexist at the same time, Cai Yuanpei is a nationalist,and he also is a democrat. In addition, Cai Yuanpei’s nationalism is much more rational,and not like Sun Zhongshan and Tao Chengzhang overemphasize against Manchuregime. Once more, Cai Yuanpei’s nationalism is mainly in his thought of saving country through education. Cai Yuanpei’s nationalist thought is produced under thebackground of national crisis, so it has distinct era characteristic, and has importantinfluence to China’s political and education. Cai Yuanpei has always been committed tothe education to save the nation and his nationalist thought in the concrete practice ofthe education salvation, his nationalist thought has always been to transform thenational character and build a prosperous national as the goal, demands forindependence, freedom, strong and prosperous new China.