A Side of the Development of Educational Administrative System in the Early Period of the Republic of China—— A Discussion Centered on Peking Academic Affairs Bureau
Abstract：After the establishment of the Republic of China, the new regime faced with the problem of political integration, and Peking Academic Affairs Bureau became an important field for the government to spread knowledge and build authority, as well as an important window to observe the development of the educational administrative system in the early period of the Republic of China. Previous studies focused on the Ministry of Education, but paid little attention to Peking Academic Affairs Bureau. Based on the background of the political development of the Republic of China, this paper sorts out the institutional changes, personnel disputes and the relationship between Peking Academic Affairs Bureau and various forces, and makes an in-depth study of some problems encountered by Peking Academic Affairs Bureau in the system design, system operation and authority shaping, taking this as a starting point to discuss the difficulties and influencing factors encountered in the development of educational institutions in the early period of the Republic of China, and deepen the understanding of the logic of the educational administrative system and political trend of the Republic of China.
In the early Republic of China, the Northern Warlord government set up Peking Academic Affairs Bureau to take charge of primary and secondary education in the capital, eliminate the educational privileges of Manchu and Mongolian nobles, strengthen the local education management of the capital, shape the republican memory and national identity, and highlight the institutional logic of republican education administration. During the May 4th Movement, the conflicts between the old and the new forces, the entanglement between Anfu Clique and the local elite, the warlord politics and other factors profoundly affected the status of Peking Academic Affairs Bureau, which was the reflection of the deviation of the political development concept of the Northern Warlord government in the educational administrative system. No matter the disassociation between Peking Academic Affairs Bureau’s Director and the school strike action, the dispute over the ownership of local education rights, or the cabinet turmoil caused by Peking Academic Affairs Bureau, it was the different political cognition of different political subjects that led to the alienation of the development of education administration in the capital, and made the educational system planning of the Northern Warlord government constantly deviate from the fundamental purpose of the education development of the Republic of China - strengthening the republican system and political identity.
In the post-May Fourth period, Peking Academic Affairs Bureau encountered strong resistance from the academic circles in dealing with the Peking Normal School storm and the Hebei education circle's power expansion, and both political and academic parties in the game moved towards egoism. No matter whether the academic community intervenes in politics by culture, or the educational institutions transform culture by politics, factional disputes cannot be avoided at the practical level, and a benign power distribution mechanism and cultural communication channels cannot be formed in the interaction, and the lack of correct common political principles has a great negative impact on the educational administrative system.
At the end of the Northern Warlord government, the struggle between the Peking and Baoding once became fierce. After that, with the prevalence of nationalism, the Manchurian Warlord strengthened its control over the educational administration as never before, and the disputes between the two groups were eliminated by the highly centralized system, but the Northern Warlord regime soon came to an end. The conflict between the two groups of Peking and Baoding is an important aspect of the conflict in the capital education sector, and its process also shows how the government integrates the forces of education sector under the continuous loss of political authority in the Northern Warlord government. It can be seen that no matter whether the government is based on the parliament or puts the state first, the government has failed to achieve effective political integration of the education sector. Lacking a deep understanding of the political community and the legitimacy of authority, both academia and the government were trapped by factional interests, which seriously damaged the political consensus of the upper class of the Republic of China and aggravated the division of the educational elite originally integrated in the political community.
The interaction between Peking Academic Affairs Bureau and various parties shows the rise and fall of local educational institutions in Peking, the development of educational administration under the tension between the republican system and the strengthening of national power, the entanglements of institutional construction and power distribution within the educational administration department, and the problems such as which political system and which way can best integrate the power of the educational sector in the educational administration system. It touches on some challenges faced by educational administration from modern times to modern times. It can be seen that the institutional framework and administrative operation of the education administrative department of the Northern Warlord government are not in harmony with the underlying logic, which is doomed to fail to become a cultural and educational management force for China’s development, and also lays the fate of decline.
商盛阳. 民国前期教育行政体制发展的一个侧面——以京师学务局为中心的探讨[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 0, (): 1-.
Shang Shengyang. A Side of the Development of Educational Administrative System in the Early Period of the Republic of China—— A Discussion Centered on Peking Academic Affairs Bureau. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 0, (): 1-.
