电报的引入与近代中国文化变迁

The Introduction of Telegraph and the Cultural Change in Modern China

晚清以降,以电报学为代表的西方近代自然科学大量传入,使得中国传统的知识体系裂变,七科之学渐次成型。一系列电报学堂的设立,以其现代的教学内容和教学方法,对中国传统的教育体系与教学模式产生冲击,专业技术教育日渐隆盛。电报引入后,引发中国语言与文学的变化,文本体裁中衍生电讯等新文体,并日益成为新闻传播之重要工具。在更深层面,国人的思想因之而逐步改变,科技意识、世界意识渐在人们的观念之中滋生并扩散开来。这一切大致反映出近代中国的文化变迁以及现代文化之成长。然需看到,即便电报知识传入中国已近半个世纪甚至更长时间,伐杆救旱事件之频发,炼魂成电谣言之流播等,又提示中国传统的风水、符谶等术数思想以及魂魄、鬼祟等宗教观念因具广阔影响,使得现代文化在中国成长之进程只能缓慢而长期,无法一蹴而就。

Since the late Qing dynasty,telegraphy,as a representative finding of the modern western natural sciences,had been introduced to China and made the traditional knowledge system fission,and so that the learning of Seven Subjects had gradually formed.The establishment of a series of telegram schools impacted the traditional education system and teaching mode with its modern contents and methods.Thus,the professional technical education had become more and more prosperous.The telegraph changed the Chinese literature,so that the telecommunications derived from the traditional text genres and became an important journalism and communication tool.It,what is more,caused the growth and spread of awareness of science and technology and the global consciousness in the thoughts of Chinese people.All of these roughly reflected a cultural change in modern China.But,due to the broad influence of the traditional divinatory thoughts and religious ideas,the events of cutting the rod to save drought and refining soul into electricity often happened,even if the telegraphy had been introduced to China for nearly half a century or more.This hints that the growth of the modern culture in China was slow and could not be accomplished overnight.