| Abstract Some scholars have explored the self-cultivation education at late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China from the perspective of social and historical changes of “subjects-citizens” and “home-nation”. This paper transforms the perspective to the individual living circumstances related to the social and historical situations, and probes into the evolution path of modern moral education from the changes of the moral idea and human existence reflected in the textbooks. First of all, the connotation of "moral" and "ethics" has changed in modern times. The promotion of the significance of "ethics" highlights the position of social relations in people’s living circumstances. "Moral" is defined by social ethics, which changes the traditional concept of "human-becoming" for the purpose of moral education. "Moral" is no longer the spiritual temperament of personality through the overall existence, but narrowed to the individual compliance with social rules; After the establishment of the modern education system, the traditional humanistic classics-based "learned person" education changed into modern disciplinary divided professional education; At the same time, ethics, physiology, hygiene and scientific psychology have deconstructed the traditional concept of body-mind unification in self-cultivation education, "body" no longer refers to the whole existence of "self", but the physical flesh under modern concepts of hygiene of physical training; Since then, the rising emphasis of social ethics and national consciousness made the modern moral education changed from the traditional temperament "nourishing" to "moulding" of citizens. Finally, the postscript part will discuss the relationship between modern education and social transformation. In fact, by examining the historical experience of China's social transformation, we will find that the traditional spirit of "self-cultivation" can be used as a basis for building the idea of modern society members’ equal personality. |
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