Taiwan Today

Influence of the great American educator-philosopher reflects the impact of his mainland lecture tour as well as his new ideas

“Education is a social process....
Education is growth....
Education is not preparation for life;
education is life itself”
— John Dewey

The Orient is a subject of fascination to Ameri­cans. Its people, art, food, social customs, religion and philosophy, and educational system are viewed by Westerners as both wonderful and mysterious. The Republic of China, a nation that I have visited twice as a researcher and lecturer (thanks to grants from the Pacific Cultural Foundation), is dear to my heart. The beauty of the island, the civility of its people and the knowledge that when I visit a university to lecture or to do research I am part of an educational continuum spanning four millennia inspire me with a sense of tranquillity and asceticism.

Yet the educational system of Free China today, though it has its roots deep in dynastic history, is one of the most progressive and equali­tarian to be found anywhere. The quality of the teaching/learning experience is evidenced by the large numbers of youngsters who seek to advance themselves by entering one of the many and varied colleges or universities of Taiwan. Quality educa­tion can best be judged by the end product — the student. The Republic of China’s economy, health care services, educational facilities and research centers are among the best in the world. This is reflected in the excellent businessmen, scientists, engineers, physicians and educators produced by these schools.

On my most recent sojourn in Taiwan, my wife (who grew up in Taiwan and is of Chinese ances­try) and I spent one of our eight weeks at Tunghai University in Taichung. Located in the central part of the island, this university (which was established when Christian colleges on the main­land were closed and subsequently moved to Taiwan) is architecturally one of the most beautiful schools anywhere. The buildings are of the T’ang Dynasty style; yet the influence of I. M. Pei, a renowned Chinese-American architect, can be seen in various facilities on the campus.

One morning at breakfast I met a visiting professor at Tunghai University. He and his wife and my wife and I were all residing at the university’s T’ang style guest house. Prof. Mei Yi-pao, age 82, was a visiting senior scholar in humanities and philosophy. His education began in North China, where he attended traditional Chinese missionary schools. Upon completion of pre-college education, he went on to Oberlin College in Ohio and then to the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in philosophy in the late 1920s. He is profes­sor emeritus of philosophy at Iowa State University. As part of Dr. Mei’s predoctoral studies, he visited Columbia University on numerous occasions in the 1920s to hear John Dewey.

John Dewey, America’s most famous and respected philosopher and educational theorist, had great influence on the development of pedagogy and curriculum design in China. He spent two years (May 1, 1919, to July 11, 1921) in the Orient and his lectures on education were so successful that they were reproduced in Chinese newspapers and published in booklet form. In 1973 they were retranslated into English, the language in which they were originally delivered.

At the numerous breakfast meetings I had with Dr. Mei we spoke of Dewey and why he had influenced Chinese philosophy and education so widely and why men like Bertram Russell, who also visited China in the early 1920s, had such a small impact.

I phrased my questions this way: Was Dewey’s great popularity with the Chinese due to (1) his personality (which was pleasant and genteel), (2) the historical period when he was in China (the 1920s were full of governmental and social changes), or (3) did his philosophy meld with Chinese traditional thought (Confucianism)?

Dr. Mei indicated that all three were important but that by far the main reason for Dewey’s success in China was his philosophy, which Dr. Mei said “was so in step with Chinese tradition and history that Dewey was referred to by us students as the American Confucius.”

My conversations with Professor Mei whetted my appetite to learn more of Dewey and his influence on Chinese education and the current educational arrangements in Taiwan. Numerous educational leaders with whom I spoke agreed with Dr. Mei; the ideas of John Dewey are taught and emphasized today in the teacher education training program throughout the Republic of China.

Professor George Dykhuizen in his excellent book, The Life and Mind of John Dewey, tells of Dewey’s China sojourn. In 1919 after spending a moderately successful three months as a lecturer and adviser at the Imperial University of Tokyo, John Dewey, who was on leave from Columbia, accepted invitations from a number of China’s best universities to give lectures. (Dewey’s main com­plaint about Japan was its anti-liberal educational bias.) His wife, Alice Chapman Dewey, accompanied him on his Oriental sojourn, as did his daughter, Lucy.

The Deweys arrived in Shanghai on April 30, 1919, and with the help of interpreters and friends spent their first few weeks sightseeing. Dewey was to become particularly fond of the Chinese people, drawn by their good nature and extreme courtesy. He summed up the temperament of the Chinese he met on the streets and in the shops this way: “Live and let live is the response to crowded conditions. If things are fairly well off, then let well enough alone. If they are evil, endure them rather than run the risk of making them worse by interference.”

Early in Dewey’s time in China he had the opportunity to meet Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China. Their discussions centered on the philosophical topic of “knowing” and “doing.” The prevailing reactionary Chinese axiom on change was summed up by Dr. Sun as follows: “To know is easy; to act is difficult.” Dr. Sun’s view, which was supported by Dewey in their lengthy conversations, was quite the opposite. As Dr. Sun was to write in his book, On Psychological Reconstruction. “To know is difficult but to do is easy.” Before publishing this major work he conferred with Dewey, who concurred with this position. The new theory was to have widespread impact on Chinese intellectual society.

As mentioned before, John Dewey’s Chinese lectures were not published in English until 1973. Robert Clopton and Ou Tsiun-chen took the lecture series that had been widely read and studied in Chinese and translated it back into English. The book, John Dewey Lectures in China. 1919-1920, contains all the lectures but the original notes were lost.

As Dewey spoke, Chinese students fluent in English translated the lectures into Chinese. Dewey’s notes were given to these students to help them. Lectures also were translated for publication in journals and newspapers. One of the translators was Hu Shih, who was to become a leading intellectual in 20th century China and a fervent supporter of Deweyan thought. Hu Shih had been a favorite student of Dewey at Columbia and had been converted to the philosophy of instrumentalism. As one of the earliest and most articulate spokes­men for educational pragmatism and cultural and ethical relativism, Hu Shih was to be in the vanguard of every major intellectual movement in China until his death in the mid-1960s. The Academia Sinica, a major research institute in the Republic of China, was once headed by Hu Shih, and a delightful park near the research center is named after this important scholar. His home on the grounds of the Academia Sinica has been preserved as it was on his last day. Visiting the home of Hu one is struck by the photographs of a middle-aged John Dewey and a youthful Hu Shih. These and other mementos of their famous friendship are in the home and the museum that is at­tached to the house.

It would be quite impossible to review in brief compass all of Dewey’s Chinese lectures. They ranged from “Social and Political Philosophy” to “Ethics” and “Modern Trends in Education.” Over 60 major lectures were delivered and they were to become a catalyst for intellectual and social change in China. Dewey’s main contribution, though, was in the area of education. At the National University in Peking in 1921 Dewey was awarded an honorary Ph.D. The rector of the University, Dr. Tsai Yuan-pei, referred to Dewey as the “Second Confucius.” Students and faculty are said to have applauded at length to express their sincere approval of this accolade.

If a review of his lectures is not feasible, it is possible to sum up his philosophy on Chinese education. A recurring theme of Dewey in his Oriental lectures was that the purpose of tradi­tional, classical philosophy, be it in ethics or pedagogy, is to perpetuate the concept of fixed values in all areas of life and then apply human reason to justify the inflexibility of standards of right and wrong. Dewey emphasized that man had moved far ahead in the areas of science, technology, industrial development and thought. Evolution, the ideas of psychology and other new paths of concern now allowed man to think in terms of what was specific, humane and changeable. He emphasized the need to rely more on individual thought and less on traditional authority and societal organization. The idea and value of change, experimentation and re-evaluation of traditional concepts, progress and continuation of a bettering society for man provided the bulwark for Dewey’s ideals. Knowledge of nature, he believed, would allow mankind to control her and through this control achieve progress and self-perpetuating growth. His philosophy ran counter to the mores of Chinese society, which for thousands of years had followed what one could call intellectual tradi­tionalism.

Concrete thought rather than evasive abstraction was needed if practical solutions to the real problems of China and the world were to be found. In his lectures on education Dewey made a series of statements on the proper attitude toward the raging Chinese conflict between traditional cultural pillars and new ideas. He believed that schools should adopt four values that would meld the old and the new: (1) open-mindedness, (2) purposiveness, (3) social and personal responsibility and (4) appreciativeness.

Education and ethics were interwoven in Dewey’s thought. This did not escape the Chinese intellectuals, who also saw the teacher as both a transmitter of information and standardbearer of ethical and moral righteousness. One must remember that China’s greatest teacher - Confucius ­— was the persona magnus of ethics, intellect and pedagogy.

Commenting on ethics during his China sojourn, Dewey stated that it was an attribute of environmental circumstances. Ethical and moral behavior were not static but varied with the demands of the society. Ethical relativism, a new standard to judge morality, was basic in Dewey’s message. Using this model, he attempted to explore the differences between the moral postures of Eastern and Western civilizations. His conclusion, according to T. C. Ou, former president of New Asia College in Hongkong, was this: (1) Western ethical thought is more abstract and more intellectual, while Eastern ethical thought is more concrete and more practical; (2) Western morality is based on individuality, while Eastern morality is based on the family; (3) Western morality respects the right of the individual, while Eastern morality de-emphasizes it (in a relative sense).

John Dewey’s influence on the modernization of Chinese education is hard to fully comprehend. Professor T. C. Ou has written:

The Influence of Dewey on Chinese education is general and even total. It was brought about by conferences with educators while Dewey was himself in China and also by his publications, almost all of which have been translated into Chinese and by outstanding students, who are the leaders of Chinese education Among these are Chiang Mon-lin. ex-minister of education and rector of National University of Peking; Hu Shih, an ardent pragmatist, who inspired the movement for a New Culture, and who was also a professor there at the time; and P. W. Kuo, the ex-rector of the National Southeastern University, Nanking. The renown and activity of these men have been very influential in bringing about popular acceptance of Dewey’s teaching and putting it into practice.

The specific areas in which Dewey’s writings and lectures on Chinese education in Taiwan (a place he never visited though he did go to Fukien, the mainland province closest to Taiwan) can be seen in both theory and practice. When considering the theoretical dimensions of Dewey on the Re­public of China one can point to the fact that his textbooks, most of which were translated into Chinese, are required reading in most teachers’ colleges. Democracy and Education is in general use at all normal universities in Taiwan and is still considered a classic. His Chinese students at Columbia carried forth his message and greatly influenced the intellectual climate in educational circles throughout Asia. Dewey’s· principles of education and curriculum content were given practical application. Chiang Mon-lin, a leader in Republic of China education, was an early convert to Deweyan ideals and, while at the Ministry of Education in the 1920s helped schools in “the cultivation of perfect personality and the development of democratic spirit.”

The public school system of China was set up after the American model and the 6-3-3 plan adopted. The goals of the new schools were (1) to promote democracy at all levels, (2) to help foster the notion of social evolution, (3) to take the economic status of the people into considera­tion, (4) to promote education as a period of preparation for life, (5) to allow the school a degree of autonomy and flexibility at the local level and (6) to use the school as a laboratory for life in society.

Child centered ness, pragmatic-instrumentalism and continuing experimentation in education were to become part of the Chinese educational experience. These can be traced to Dewey’s influence. Dewey was a strong advocate of textbooks written in the spoken language, believing that this would help democratize the classroom. All of these concepts prevail in Taiwan education and teaching.

Professor Ou sums up the influence of John Dewey on the development of Chinese education in these words:

In conclusion, we may say that Dewey has contributed to China’s modernization intellectually and educationally. Through his intellectual influence the Chinese new cultural movement has culminated in a number of constructive achievements in improving moral, political and social institutions and practices in the process of modernizing China. Dewey did not offer any concrete program for those improvements. But he offered a reflective method of thinking, an intellectual tool for modernizing the old China with so heavy a burden of old tradition. To be modern, Dewey did not advocate, as assumed by some historians of Chinese history, the overthrow of all the old Chinese culture and the acceptance of Western culture as a whole without any discrimination. What he contributed to China’s modernization was his persuasion of the Chinese to strike a balance between the Chinese and Western cultures by means of a method of reflective thinking. His concurrence with Dr. Sun’s view of the rela­tionship between knowing and doing was also based upon his pragmatic method of knowledge.

Dewey’s influence on Chinese education is universally acknowledged. Through the modernization of education he helped China’s modernization in other aspects. Since the promulgation of the new school system which was inspired by Dewey’s teaching, China has produced tens of thousands of people with modern training and modern spirit, who have helped modernize China in all aspects and in all levels. Although Dewey’s fame and prestige have not been fully revived in the United States, yet his contribution to China’s mod­ernization is still and will always be remem­bered.

Perhaps a person’s importance can be deduced by the intensity of his detractors. In the early 1950s the leading educators in Communist China launched a steady high-powered campaign against Dewey and the ideas of pragmatism. As quoted in Hu Shih’s article, “John Dewey in China,” a Chinese Communist administrator writing in “Peoples Education” (Peiping, October, 1959) stated: “If we want to criticize the old theories of education we must begin with Dewey. The educational ideas of Dewey have dominated and controlled Chinese education for 30 years and his social philosophy and his general philosophy have also influenced a part of the Chinese people.”

Though the statue of Confucius stands at the entrance of all universities and colleges in Taiwan, one suspects that a small likeness of John Dewey would also be appropriate. More than any West­erner, he helped to make the ideals of Chinese education in the Republic of China what they are today — a fusing of the ethics and the ideals of Confucius and the pragmatism and equalitarianism of the West.

For further reading on John Dewey’s influence on Chinese education I would suggest the following works:

1. Dykhuizen, George, The Life and Mind of John Dewey (Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1973).

2. Clopton, Robert, and Ou, T. C., John Dewey: Lectures in China, 1919-1920 (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1973).

3. Hu Shih, “John Dewey in China” in Philosophy and Culture: East and West (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1962).

4. Ou, T. C., Dewey’s Influence on China’s Ef­forts for Modernization (St. Johns Papers in Asian Studies, No. 24, St. Johns Univ., 1978).