晚清民初留学生社会形象及其演变

Social Images of the Chinese Returned Students and Their Evolution in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China

晚清时期,留学生的社会形象从模糊到清晰,从对容闳等早期边缘人"通夷言夷字""久居外洋"的模糊认识,到清政府派遣同文馆学生出洋、幼童留美、船政学生留欧,形成对出洋肄业生的认知,社会逐步认识了这一新群体,留学生形象在19世纪八九十年代建构起来。甲午战败后,在张之洞《劝学篇》、梁启超《敬告留学生诸君》等著述鼓舞下,出国留学迅速成为晚清社会的焦点之一,社会对留学生寄予厚望。在一系列奖励游学毕业生出身和授予官职政策的推动下,越来越多的留学生被清政府任用,树立了留学生社会精英的形象。直至民初,社会赋予留学生群体救治中国衰敝的重任,留学生在政学工商各界均举足轻重。留学生也承载了社会及家庭对自身的巨大期许和压力,完成了自我形塑。20世纪20年代中期,诸多因素导致留学生遭到学界批评和质疑,对留学生的崇拜逐渐破除,理性认知成为学界的共识。然而,留学生精英者的形象依旧,普通民众对留学生仍旧盲从。在清末民初社会形象演变过程中,留学生从社会边缘走到了舞台中心。

Social images of the Chinese returned students changed from ambiguity to clarity in the late Qing dynasty.The images of the returned students between 1850 sand 1870 s,such as Yung Wing,known as speaking foreign language and staying a long time at overseas,were blurred.People got knowledge of the returned students when the Qing government dispatched Tongwen College Students,the Chinese Educational Mission Boys and Naval Students to Europe.The society embraced progressively the returned students,and the social images of the returned students were constructed in the1880 sto 1890 s.After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894—1895,encouraged by works,such as Zhang Zhidong’s Exhortation to Learning('Quan Xue Pian',《劝学篇》)and Liang Qichao’s Exhortations to Students Studying Abroad(《敬告留学生诸君》),studying abroad quickly became one of the focuses of the late Qing society.The whole society held high hopes for the returned students.Promoted by a series of policies such as rewarding returned graduates and bestowing them offices,more and more returned students were appointed by the Qing government,and social elite image of returned students were thus shaped.Until the early Republic of China,the society expected the returned students to save China from decline,and the returned students played important roles in the political,academic,and business circles.Bearing expectations and pressures from society and families,the returned students had completed the shaping of their self-images.In the mid-1920 s,many factors led to the criticism and questioning of the returned students.Especially in the academic circles,the worship of the returned students was gradually eliminated,and rational cognition had become the consensus.But the elite image of the returned students remained the same,and ordinary people still idolized them.In the social evolution of the late Qing dynasty and the early Republic China,the returned students came to the center of stage from the edge of society.