"Middle school" refers to Confucianism with the three cardinal guides and the five permanent members as its core, while "Western learning" refers to social sciences such as natural science, business studies, education, foreign trade and public law of nations introduced into China in modern times. The meaning of "body" is fundamental. "Use" refers to specific measures.
On the basis of maintaining the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty, he advocated the use of western natural science and technology such as gun-making, railway construction, mining, wire laying and other specific cultural and educational methods to save the ruling crisis.
186 1 year (in the 11th year of Xianfeng), Feng Guifen, a thinker in the late Qing Dynasty, said in "Protest in Schools": "It is based on the ethics of China, supplemented by the skills of rich Qiang Bing." This idea was first revealed. Later, westerners expressed it in various ways.
1895 (twenty-first year of Guangxu) In April, Naxi Fuzuo published the article "Saving Time" in the World Bulletin, which clearly put forward the concept of "taking middle school as the body and western learning as the application" for the first time. The following year, Sun Jianai, the minister of does, once again put forward in the book "A Ten-fold Opening of Shi Jing University" that "middle school is the mainstay, supplemented by western learning; Middle school is the body and western learning is the use. "
1In May, 898, Zhang Zhidong's "Encouraging Learning" was published, which comprehensively and systematically expounded the guiding ideology of the Westernization School.
During the Westernization Movement, education in China was still dominated by feudal traditional education. The Westernization School put forward the idea of "adapting Chinese style to western style", emphasizing the adoption of western learning without endangering China's style. This is not only the cultural and educational view of the Westernization School, but also the strategy of the Westernization School to deal with the old school. The early thought of "learning from China and using the West" played a positive role in breaking through the obstruction of feudal die-hards, introducing western natural science, and promoting the modernization of China's industry and military and the emergence of new education. Later, it became the ideological weapon of the Qing rulers against bourgeois reform and bourgeois revolution.