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The roots of a system of formal education in China can be traced back at least as far as the 16th century B.C. later Shang Dynasty (1523-1027 B.C.) Throughout this period education was the privilege of the elite few, and for the most part existed for no other purpose than to produce government officials. Early on, the curriculum centered on the so-called “Six Arts”: Rites, Music, Archery, Chairot-Riding, History, and Mathematics However, based on the teachings of Confucius (551-479 B.C.) during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods (770-221 B.C.), the curriculum gradually gave way one based on The Four Books and The Five Classics These works outlined the principles of society and government, as well as codes for personal conduct, and collectively define Confucian philosophy, which exerted a fundamental influence on virtually all aspects of life, and certainly on education, at least until the Liberation and ascent to power by the Communists in 1949.
A system that educated an elite class was established and steadfastly maintained, perpetuating subsequent generations of an educated elite resting incongruously on a base of mass illiteracy. This is not to say that the government actively provided for any form of “public education.” Instead, the imperial government had an active hand in education only inasmuch as it administered the various levels of the imperial or civil service examinations, which were used for the selection of imperial officers. The exams themselved consisted of essay questions that tested the candidate’s understanding of Confucius’ teachings. The students could prepare for these examinations by enrolling in the private instutions of higher education of the say, the shuyuan (书院) which existed for no other reason than to prepare students for the civil service examinations.
Throughout the thousands of years of imperial rule, even as one dynasty gave way to the next, the Chinese were steadfast in their belief that socially and intellectually they had no peers, especially as compared with Western cultures. They had a highly developed culture, and with the “four inventions” (gunpower, the compass, movable type and paper), they felt also that they had a rich technological tradition. However, with the humiliating defeat at the hands of the British in the Opium War (1840-1842), the Chinese were forced to grudgingly re-evaluate their dominance, at least in the area of science and technology. Following the defeat in the Opium War and the ensuing cessation of Hong Kong to Great Britian, Western education gradually began to take root in China, for the most part through schools founded by Christian missionaries. While the majority of Chinese gentry looked upon these developments with a sense of humiliation and extreme suspicion, a few more pragmatic and liberal-minded officials saw the opportunity for a balanced approach to education, where Confucian classics would continue to form the core, augmented by a component of Western technology.
Against a backdrop of massive illiteracy, the system of civil service examinations continued to be the only route to officialdom. However, with the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Chinese finally became convinced that their own future would rest, at least in part, on the acceptance of certain aspects of Western-style education. (Indeed, Japan had already been successful in adapting Western education to a non-Western society.) In 1905 the civil service examination system was dismantled, and a series of reform measures were issued by the Qing Dynasty court calling for the old academies to be reorganized into a modern system of primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education, to be based on Western models.
Shortly thereafter, in 1911, the Qing Dynasty itself was overthrown in the bourgeois revolution, and a Republican form of government was established. By this time, there were already European, American and Japanese education models on Chinese soil. Because of Japan’s successful adaptation, their system was tried first, implemented by a large number of Japanese-trained Chinese scholars. During the chaotic warlord period of the early 1920s, this gradually gave way to a system more closely patterned on American models. Even before this, however, especially during the “May Fourth Period” of 1915-1920, there were intense debates and disputes over the cloning of Western-style education systems in a country trying to find a new identity after millennia of dynastic rule. Of course, it is inaccurate to say that the debates were centered only on educational matters; they were largely political, inspired in part by the Russian revolution and the subsequent takeover by the Marxist government. In turn, the Chinese Communist Party was born in 1921, with its own ideas about the “correct” form of education in China.
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