History of the Development of Education in China

Author: Yu Benfa, Xiong Xianjun
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1999-06-01
Features: This book has the following characteristics:
1. In terms of its systematic arrangement, the book makes a new attempt, highlighting the relative independence of education, the laws and stages of its own development, rather than tearing apart the historical connections of its own development to conform to external historical events. At the same time, it pays attention to the broader historical context of education's development.
2. The book provides a detailed, comprehensive, and systematic discussion of educational systems throughout history. Building on previous work, it offers careful refinements and enhancements, demonstrating unique insight in summarizing historical experiences.
3. In its discussion of educational trends, the book breaks away from the old approach of focusing on isolated individuals. It emphasizes vertical and horizontal connections, meticulously analyzes schools of thought, traces their origins, distinguishes their categories, and clarifies their developments. This makes the book clear in structure, well-organized, and thought-provoking, with justified praise and criticism.
4. For individual educators, the authors avoid the rigid format of "one era, two lifetimes, three worldviews, four educational roles, five educational purposes." Instead, they treat each figure differently. Key figures are briefly introduced with their lifetimes, while secondary figures are presented directly with their educational views. The book avoids forcing worldviews onto each individual or rigidly labeling them politically. For the educational ideas or theories of these figures, the book does not impose modern educational frameworks onto them or force them into modern attire. Instead, it starts from the actual historical context, bases arguments on historical records, highlights individuality, and extracts striking titles from their original works to avoid making them appear uniform.
5. The book applies the principles of historical materialism in its evaluation of educational history and figures. It conducts class analysis without arbitrarily applying class labels, emphasizes the constraints of economy and politics on education without overlooking its relative independence and unique characteristics, and judges educational views based on historical facts rather than political stances or worldviews. It affirms what is right and corrects what is wrong.
6. The book is well-written, concise, fresh, lively, and highly readable. Both Yu and Xiong have been teaching and researching the history of Chinese education in higher education for 10 years. They have solid foundations, are diligent and intelligent, and have achieved remarkable success in both teaching and research. Their teaching has always been well-received, and their research has yielded fruitful results. Now, they have compiled their 10 years of hard work into this book, which is a commendable achievement. Of course, no gem is without flaws, and creative thinking may occasionally miss the mark. Demanding perfection can harm innovation. Learning has no end—how can we be sure that those who come after us will not surpass us? At the author's request, I have written this preface.