Slim Woman Early Republic Primary Education (1912-1916)

Various ideas frequently interacted and social revolutions took place easily inChina from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China. Inthis period, women education was experiencing unprecedented changes in Chinesehistory. After the disputation about “Should women receive education?”,“Whichkind of content should be given to women?” and the promulgation of the decree thatgirls and boys were supposed to receive education at the same school when beingprimary school students, women education has formally realized equality with that ofmen at the beginning of the Republic of China. At the same time, the course ofXiushen, one of the most traditional curricula in Chinese culture, was going throughslow and profound changes in the wave of this revolution.The course of Female Xiushen had a close relation with the tradition of Chinesewomen education, in terms of content and form, but the former is deeper than thelater. Therefore, the essay begins with the women’s teaching materials in ancientChina by analyzing and summarizing their main content. Take The Newest Textbookof Xiushen for Primary School for example, not only the content but also a largeproportion of the cases in this teaching material were based on ancient femaletextbooks.Until the establishment of the Republic of China, great changes of female moraleducation took place in the scope of content. Kinds of knowledge about democracyand republicanism emerged, which had inseparable relevance to the reformation inthe fields of society, thoughts and education at that period. All of the changes wereintroduced in Chapter Three. According to the background knowledge and theevidences from The Textbook of Xiushen which was published by ZhonghuaPublishing Company, the content of female moral education is divided into four partsin Chapter Four, namely, improving comprehensive personal qualities, creatingharmonious family atmosphere, fulfilling citizen obligations and reconstructing newgroup consciousness. The basic features of women moral education in primary schoolat the beginning of the Republic of China are expounded in Chapter Five. On the one hand, the unity of opposites between traditional Chinese female morality and citizenethics of Capitalism characterized the female moral education. On the other hand,the women’s inherent image of “the other” was kept in that historical era. At the endof the essay, the author makes a summary of female moral education of primaryschool at the beginning of the Republic of China, then puts forward its enlightenmentto contemporary education.