Zhang Boling jiaoyu sixiang yanjiu 张伯苓教育思想硏究 (A study of Zhang Boling's educational thought) (review)

Abstract

Features 355 Liang Jisheng 'Mï^fe. Zhang Bolingjiaoyu sixiangyanjiu íBHa^rifcWíSíi W[Jh (A study ofZhang Boling's educational thought). Shenyang: Liaoning Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 1994. 411 pp. In recent years, in both China and the U.S., there has been a growing number of publications on higher education in Republican China. Almost all major Chinese universities have published official "school histories" (xiaoshi^l^i), and scholars in the U.S. have published important studies on Yenching (Yanjing) University (Philip West, Yenching University and Sino-Western Relations, 1916-1952 [Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1976]) and on the Christian colleges (Jessie Gregory Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850-1950 [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971] ). The Cambridge History ofChina includes an important review ofhigher education by ?-tu Zen Sun ("The Growth of the Academic Community , 1912-1949," in vol. 13, pt. 2), and Yeh Win-hsin has published a pathbreaking study ofstudent culture in Shanghai universities (TheAlienatedAcademy: Culture and Politics in Republican China: 1919-1937 [Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1990]). Most of these studies have understandably focused on Shanghai and Beijing, where some 80 percent ofall college students were concentrated. But with this focus , there has been an important omission from the literature. Past research has dealt with either missionary schools or national universities, and indeed the contrast between these two types ofschools has been an important theme ofthe historiography . But missing has been one ofthe most important and influential private schools ofpurely Chinese origin: Nankai University in Tianjin, where the guiding light and president for most ofthe Republican period was Zhang Boling, the subject ofthe present study. Liang Jisheng, the author ofthis study, is a member ofthe secretariat ofthe president's office ofNankai University. For manyyears, he has devoted himselfto the study ofNankai and ofZhang Boling. Aided by his access to the publications and archives ofNankai University and Middle School, and making use ofmany interviews with friends and associates of Zhang Boling, he has assembled a striking portrait ofone ofmodern China's premier educators. Because ofhis close association with Chiang Kaishek in his later years, Zhang has until recently been something ofa taboo subject for PRC historians—but the new ideology ofcontemporary China makes it possible to write positively about Zhang as a national-© 1995 by University {st educator. ofHawaiiPressZhang Bolingwasborn in 1876 to apoor teacher at aTianjin family school (sishu M3&). He attended a tuition free school (yixue mW) for his primary education , as his family could not afford a proper classical training at a sishu. The 356 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1995 free school was designed to teach poor children basic literacy, so Zhang had no chance to study the Chinese classics. According to Liang, "this later aided Zhang to accept Western knowledge more quickly" (p. 4). Zhang then spent five years, from age 13 to age 18, in Beiyang Naval Academy (Beiyang Shuishi Xuetang), one ofthe leading schools for the study of the modern sciences under its president, the famous translator and reformer Yan Fu, himself a British naval academy graduate. The emphasis on "evidence," practical learning, and especially physical science at the naval academy was fundamentally different from the usual education ofyoung men in the late Qing. Upon his graduation in the fall of 1894, Zhang was sent home. No naval career awaited him: after the disastrous losses in the Sino-Japanese war, there was not a single ship left for the students to practice on. Some twenty years later, Zhang would reflect on this fateful coincidence: While at the naval academy, I saw Lushun [Port Arthur] and Dalian taken over by the Japanese, and Qingdao by the Germans. I saw two soldiers on Liugong Island: one was British—well built, well dressed, with an expression of disdain on his face. The other one was Chinese—wearing a ragged cloth, with "brave" (yongM) on the front, his face pale, his shoulders thin. The contrast was like heaven and earth. I was ashamed and deeply grieved. The shock was so great that the image remains vivid in my mind to this day. I was determined to reform the Chinese people, but not by training the army and navy to compete...