The Study Of Foreign History Textbooks For Middle Schools From The Late Qing Dynasty To The Republic Of China

Middle school history textbooks are the most important material carriers of middle school history education.The period from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China was important for the beginning and the development of modernization of history education in middle schools.Along with the educational reform in the late Qing Dynasty,middle school history textbooks developed from scratch,from translation to self-editing,and gradually became independent and mature.The structure and content of foreign history textbooks in middle schools were constantly innovated from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China.On the background of the influence of western historiography,the introduction of western pedagogy,and the change of government education policies,and aiming at drawing the outline of the development of foreign history textbooks for middle schools,this paper concluded periodic writing features of the main foreign history textbooks of middle schools,which takes “Renxu Educational System” as the dividing line and divided foreign history textbooks for middle schools into two stages.From the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China,the foreign history textbooks of middle schools accepted new historical concepts,such as the evolution opinion,the view of global history and historical stages,etc.And the most typical stylistic rules and layout designs are written into chapters and sections.The foreign history textbooks of middle schools in this period also showed the characteristics of dependence on foreign history books,emergence of self-compilation consciousness,awakening of national crisis consciousness,and publicity of civil rights.After the issue of “Renxu Educational System”,the historical view of foreign history textbooks for middle schools changed,which was manifested by the popularization of the view of social evolution,the pursuit of the global history with the civilization history as the main part,the diversity of historical staging standards,and the use of double evidence method.With the development of auxiliary system in textbooks and the appearance of horizontal typesetting textbooks,the history textbooks with local characteristics have taken initial shape.At this stage,foreign history textbooks for middle schools were compiled in accordance with the standards of history courses,which enhanced the awareness of serving teaching and learning.At the same time,new features have appeared in content selection and written expression: taking the causal relationship between historical events as the guiding principle,the selection criteria of increasing emphasis on modern history,the gradual withdrawal of Chinese history content,the focus on historical theoretical knowledge,the dominance of vernacular Chinese,and the narrative mode combining narrative and theory.Textbooks reflect modern society,just like a mirror.The compilation features of the foreign history textbooks of middle schools after the new school system showed the distinctive characteristics of the age,which included arousing Chinese people's patriotic consciousness,yearning for peace,infiltration of The Three People's Principles,and historical materialism.