Confucian religion and education system in the Kang Youwei's Reform Plans (at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries)

Abstract

© Medwell Journals, 2016.Ths study deals with the views of famous Chinese refomer and founder of modern neo-Confucianism-Kang Youwei (1858.1927) During the period of the 1890s and duing Hundred Days Reform Movement of 1898 he offered to the emperor the project of establishment the Confucian Chapel and giving to Confucianism the status of official religion. He put forward similar projects immediately after the revolution in 1911. At the same time, he did not separate the plans of establishing confucianism from the reforming of education system in China. Historical-genetic and comparative-historical methods were used in the research. The analysis of Kang Youwei's and his contemporaries' works shows that the refomer believed the backwardness of China and inability of the country to compete with the leading Western powers-especially the United States, Britain and Gemany comes from the low moral qualities of the chinese and the imperfection of education system. Reformation of confucianism on the model of the Christian church and the inclusion of its values in the education system will help to awake the spirit of the nation and to bring the reforms into action quickly. The contemporaries called hun "Martin Luther of Confucianism. "However, the power elites of the Qing dynasty turned down his projects as radical ones. In 1898-1913 Kang Youwei lived outside China. When he came back, politicians of Chinese Republic rejected the project of Confucian Chapel as being contraq to the ideals of republicanism and democracy; Kahn was perceived as a reactionary and consenrative. The study is of interest to researchers of Chinese ideology, religious and education idea.