18 / / 19 between father and son, sovereign and subject , husband and wife, elders and youngsters, and among friends. Regarding student’s learning, the five stages to follow: to learn broadly, to examine closely, to reflect thoroughly, to judge rightly and to practice earnestly. The first four stages were aimed at full understanding of the knowledge and truths in question. Earnest practice refers to achieving oneness in knowledge and practice. There are three specific aspects to earnest practice: cultivating of oneself, handling of matters and engaging of others. For cultivating oneself, one should keep one’s words sincere and truthful, take respectful and honourable actions, show restraint in anger and desires, and enhance morality and rectify wrongdoing. When handling things, one should opt for righteousness rather than scheming for profit, and manifest the highest principle without seeking merit. Finally, in one’s dealings with others, do not do unto others what one would not have them do unto oneself; reflect on oneself introspectively when faced with obstacles. These exemplary principles illustrate the ultimate goal of shuyuan education, which is the pursuit of morality and ethics. The teaching method is centred on allowing students to fully understand and take to heart moral principles through thinking, inquiry, judgment, and practice. Moreover, having the knowledge is far from enough as it must be put into practice. There are several guidelines to be followed in practice, which correspond to the three aspects of personal cultivation, problem solving, and interaction with others respectively. Yuelu Shuyuan was founded in 976 AD by Zhu Dong, then Prefect of Tanzhou (present day Changsha), on the original site of a Buddhist temple school. When Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty summoned Zhou Shi, then head of the shuyuan, and conferred the shuyuan a name plaque inscribed in the emperor’s cal l igraphy, the shuyuan became widely known throughout the empire. During the Southern Song Dynasty, thanks to the Confucian Master Zhang Shi’s teaching at the shuyuan, as well as his famous meeting with Zhu Xi where they discussed and debated The Doctrine of the Mean, the academy’s reputation rose once again and came to be acclaimed as one of the Four Great Shuyuans. When heading the Tanzhou government in 1194, Zhu Xi rejuvenated and expanded Yuelu Shuyuan. He gave lectures in person during which he might have introduced his Regulations of Bailudong Shuyuan. It was said that his disciples numbered as many as 1,000. In spite of the ups and downs over the three dynasties of Yuan, Ming and Qing that followed, the shuyuan was sustained by continual restoration by the government or individuals, and thus escaped fading into oblivion. Throughout the imperial period, Yuelu Shuyuan persisted with its traditional education aim to cultivate scholar-officials (shidafu) with high moral integrity who could govern beneficently. It nurtured generations of elites of Hunan, such as Zeng Guofan, renowned for their erudition and achievements. During the education reforms in the late Qing Dynasty, shuyuan were replaced by xuetang (schools) and the imperial civil service examinations were abolished and replaced by the Western schooling system. Yuelu Shuyuan also evolved under different names and organisational fomrs such as Hunan Institute of Higher Learning (1903), Hunan University (1926), National Hunan University (1937) and Hunan University (1959). In 1986, Hunan University completed the restoration of Yuelu Shuyuan as a constituent unit of the university and it retained the name of Yuelu Shuyuan. Within the academy, an institute of cultural studies, and the bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral degree programmes in history, philosophy, archaeology and other disciplines were established one after another. According to the university’s profile, Hunan University has inherited and carried forward the tradition of ‘transmission of knowledge and morality so as to benefit the people, being patriotic and pragmatic, contributing to society with practical knowledge, and being open-minded and inclusive’. Its overarching goal is to nurture talents of solid foundation and broad perspective with both ability and integrity. The Western education system can be traced back to the Paideia education of the ancient Greek city-states. The concept of Paideia implies a wide range of meaning including culture, civilisation, literacy, and civilising. Different from China’s educational development trajectory, which evolved from a government system into a dual system of private and government schools, in the Greek city-states, the evolution is from a military education supported by the aristocracy to a non-military civil education, as exemplified by Athenian education. In earlier times, individual teachers (didaskalos) took on students, mainly from the nobility, and imparted knowledge and skills of sports, writing and art, in order to cultivate ‘gentlemanly qualities’ (kalos kagathos) of both virtue and intelligence. After the 5th century AD, the school-like institution scholés emerged in the Paideia system, and the scope of education was expanded to include grammar, logic, rhetoric, philosophy, ethics, oratory, debate, music, arts, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, geography, history, politics and physical education. Among them, grammar, logic and rhetoric gradually came to form the three arts (trivium), which were the knowledge to be acquired by free citizens (liberalis) as opposed to slaves. For further learning, free citizens were expected to engage the four arts (quadrivium), namely astronomy, arithmetic, geometry and music. These seven arts (ars) constituted the main part of the liberal arts education (ars liberalis), which aimed to cultivate liberal citizens of virtue and intelligence who were erudite and capable of exploring the truth of the universe and life. The liberal arts education was also known as enkuklios paideia, referring to whole-person education or holistic education, where enkuklios bore meanings of well-rounded, circular, general, common, etc. Some of these scholés evolved into famous educational institutions, for exploring knowledge, debating the truth, and as a repository of books and literature, as was the case with the Academy established by Plato and the Lyceum by Aristotle. This kind of Roman-Hellenistic education was later provided throughout the Roman empire, often with official funding. The curricula carried on the Hellenistic Paideia tradition, emphasising humanities (humanitas) and usually covered liberal arts education as represented by the seven arts. It also incorporated the Roman legal tradition dating back to the times of the Law of the Twelve Tables (Duodecim Tabulae) of the 5th century BC. The purpose of the Roman humanistic education was likewise to nurture liberal Roman citizens with both intelligence and virtue. The decline of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. Early in this period, the principal centres of learning shifted to Christian monasteries. By transcribing ancient texts, monks were trained to be proficient in the Greek and Roman classics and in the interpretation of the Bible, and they were also cultivated to uphold the Christian ethics of nobility and chastity, compassion and charity. After hundreds of years punctuated by wars, from the city-states, principalities and kingdoms, which claimed to rule locally or regionally, to the Holy Roman Empire and Roman Catholic Church, which claimed to overrule the entire Western world, all formed their respective political and social systems of authority. In this plethora of power regimes, various educational institutions sprang up to cater to the different needs in their respective territories. There were local government schools, church-run schools, professional guilds, private schools brought together and run by students and teachers, etc. After the 12th century, a higher education system called university (universitas) came into being, which was an epoch-making development in the history of Western education and established the basic model of Western higher education. With an immeasurable impact that lasts to the present time, it has become the globally adopted system of higher education. The defining features of a university is that of a statutory association of professors and/or students in a particular community, recognised and authorised by the ruling powers or by the Papacy, to impart academic knowledge, to confer degrees to those who passed the statutory examinations, and to administer its affairs in accordance with its own charter and statutes. Universities tend to remain in their place of establishment, and thus often take their location to be their namesake. Students and teachers, on the other hand, came from all corners of Europe yet enjoyed all the legal privileges and rights 位於雅典娜林多斯面向愛琴海的多力克神廟 Doric temple, Athena, Lindos, facing Aegean Sea ╚锟⛿㶇䑑剹ꯗ侷芎溸⯽┿♂气 College Education in China and the West in Historical Perspective 睙┞ꌄ | PART I
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzM0NzM2