Late Imperial China

Late Imperial China 22.2 (2001) 124-155

Children and the Survival of China:
Liang Qichao on Education Before the 1898 Reform^*

Limin Bai

On the eve of the 1898 Reform, Liang Qichao (1873-1929) advocated changes to the traditional Chinese education of children which, he believed, was hindering children's intellectual development and would, consequently, ruin China's future. In 1896 Liang began publishing a series of articles entitled On Reforms (Bianfa tongyi) in Current Affairs (Shiwu bao). In this series of articles he touched upon a broad range of issues concerning education (such as schools in general, teachers' colleges, academic societies, the education of women and children), arguing that education was the key to reform.

Liang's view reflected the intellectual milieu of the second half of the nineteenth century. After the Opium War of the 1840s, many Chinese intellectuals were aware of China's weak position in the world. Especially in 1895, China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War and the publication of Yan Fu's translation of Thomas Huxley's Evolution and Ethics stirred cries for reforms in education and institutional systems. Reformers and scholars who were sympathetic to reforms started to question the effectiveness of traditional education and its contribution to China's future.

This intellectual milieu is very similar to that in the early Qing. Educational reformers of that time blamed the collapse of the Ming dynasty on traditional education which only valued Confucian philosophy but overlooked practical crafts. In their opinion, traditional Chinese education only produced literati who might have been excellent in Neo-Confucian moral practice, or had succeeded in the civil service examinations, but they had no practical skills to benefit people in their daily life. When their country was in danger, they could do nothing but kill themselves to show their loyalty. ¹ [End Page 124]

About two centuries later, history seemed to repeat itself, only this time China did not face the collapse of a dynasty but the possible extinction of the whole nation. It was in this context, on the eve of the 1898 Reform, that Liang Qichao and his generation of scholars shared the same criticism of traditional Chinese education with the seventeenth-century thinkers. Furthermore, they determined to create a new school system which, they believed, was essential to China's survival.

In both Chinese and English literature, while much attention has been given to Liang's political theory and activities, few researchers have focused solely on his educational ideas. ² To indicate how traditional child-rearing and education were challenged by a crisis that threatened the survival of the whole nation, this article concentrates on Liang Qichao's proposed reforms of children's education and the new curriculum he designed before the 1898 Reform. It first examines Liang's version of social Darwinism and the connection he saw between the education of children and China's fate. Then the discussion focuses on Liang's notion of "developing the child's brain power through education" which, from his social Darwinian perspective, was the key to improving the Chinese race. Against his theoretical orientation and his criticism of traditional Chinese education, the article looks in detail at Liang's curriculum, identifying the Western influence on his vision of modern education for a new China. This study finally analyzes Liang's emphasis on the synthesis of Chinese-Western learning as reflected in his ideas of education, and ends with a discussion of the impact of Liang's proposed reforms in education on the establishment of a modern Chinese school system.

A social-Darwinian perspective: children's education and the fate of China

Liang's search for alternatives to traditional Chinese practice was partly stimulated by information about Western education in missionary writings. ³ For instance, he "specifically called upon the authority of [Timothy] Richard to argue for educational reform" ⁴ in his On Reforms. Among all Western nations, Liang Qichao admired England most, as he saw England as the first nation that had a modern polity as well as national power, ^5...