Bulletin Winter 1977

Student Movement Political activism o f university-based intellec­ tuals (especially students) is rather a recent pheno­ menon in the West. It probably cannot be traced much further back than to the Russian intelligentsia in the closing decades o f the 19th century. A vivid example may be found in the “ Going to the People" movement o f the 1870's. In China, however, student movement on a large scale began as early asthe second century when the student body o f the Imperial Aca­ demy joined the outer court officials in the heroic struggle against the corrupt eunuch clique then in power. A t the end o f the Northern Sung, hundreds o f students o f the Imperial Academy filed no less than ten organized protests w ith the emperor, condemning the non-resistance policy o f the court towards the invading Jurcheds. In one o f their mass demonstra­ tions, they were able to arouse more than 100,000 sympathizers among the people and soldiery to join them. Thus, like university student bodies in many parts o f the Third World today, they took on the special role o f the bearer o f the idea o f nationality when the survival o f their country was seriously threatened. After the Sung, the shu-yuan functioned in the place o f the Imperial Academy. The well-known poli­ tical and social protest o f the Tung-lin (東林 “ East Forest") intellectuals in the early 17th century began quietly in a local academy in Wusih, but spread almost immediately to the entire country like forest fire. It has remained to this day the model for Chinese intel lectual dissent. Tradition and Modernity I have so far stressed the "modernity" in the Chinese tradition o f higher education and learning. I am quite convinced that tradition and modernity need not be interpreted as radically contradictory, that is to say, absolute alternatives. It is by no means inconceivable that congenial elements o f the old society, when creatively turned to constructive use, can suit the needs o f the new. In fact, sometimes tradition may turn out to facilitate rather than hinder modernization. The readiness w ith which late Ch'ing reformers o f education accepted the modern university both as an idea and as an institution makes better sense only if we also take into account the long Chinese tradition o f learned institutions. It is interest ing to note that when the Imperial University (Ching- shih Ta-hs üeh -t'ang 京師大學堂） was first founded in 1898 ， its core programme was exclusively Neo-Con- fucian oriented. It was in essense a mixture o f the Im­ perial Academy and the shu-yuan. The curricular re­ form plan o f 1896 for the provincial shu-yuan was no more than an expansion o f Hu Yuan's model. But it didn't take long for these schools, especially the Im­ perial University, to become sufficiently modernized to play avital role in the fermentation o f new thought. We can even detect forces o f tradition at work in the intellectual revolution centered at Peking Na­ tional University (the Republican successor to the Imperial University) during the May Fourth period, which, paradoxically enough, was radically anti-tradi- tional in nature. The very fact that this “ new thought" movement was university-based reminds us o f the close connection between the growth o f new ideas and the shu-yuan system in the Sung and Ming times. By con trast, it may be pointed out, in Enlightenment France the work o f the philosophes was conspicuously uncon nected w ith universities. Furthermore, one can hardly fail to recognize the remarkable family resemblance which student movements dating from the May Fourth period bear to those at the close o f the Northern Sung dynasty. Although much has been said in favour o f the Chinese tradition o f higher education and learning, I am nevertheless tough-minded enough not to fall a prey to nostalgia. The university is, as Flexner once said so well, “ an expression o f the age, as well as an influence operating upon both present and future". Therefore, it is to the present and future, not the past, that our attention must now be directed. Traditional University In the Chinese case, what really distinguishes the modem university from its pre-modern precursers (including both the Imperial Academy and the shu- yuan) is the attitude toward knowledge. The Imperial Academy and shu-yuan were after all traditional universities deeply embedded in a traditional society. It was characteristic o f the traditional university to be constantly subject to state interference and ideo­ logical control. One or two examples w ill suffice to illustrate our point. Ideological control first caused great confusion to the Imperial Academy during the turbulent period o f Wang An-shih's reform in the early Sung and then completely destroyed its intel lectual vita lity in the early years o f the Ming dynasty. As for state interference, the most notorious case was the imperial confiscation o f all private shu-ymn in China in 1579. Under such circumstances, it was extremely d ifficu lt for the traditional university to maintain either intellectual autonomy or institutional 12