The aim of modern education in China is to work towards the establishment of “High Chinese”, the former official (Mandarin) language, throughout the country, and to set limits to the use of the various dialects.  Once this has been done, it will be possible to proceed to a radical reform of the script without running the risk of political separatist movements, which are always liable to spring up, and also without leading, through the adoption of various dialects as the basis of separate literatures, to the break-up of China’s cultural unity.  In the last years, the unification of the spoken language has made great progress.  Yet, alphabetic script is used only in cases in which illiterate adults have to be enabled in a short time to read very simple informations.  More attention is given to a simplification of the script as it is; Japanese had started this some forty years earlier.  Unfortunately, the new Chinese abbreviated forms of characters are not always identical with long-established Japanese forms, and are not developed in such a systematic form as would make learning of Chinese characters easier.

2 First period of the Republic:  The warlords

The situation of the Republic after its foundation was far from hopeful.  Republican feeling existed only among the very small groups of students who had modern education, and a few traders, in other words, among the “middle class”.  And even in the revolutionary party to which these groups belonged there were the most various conceptions of the form of republican state to be aimed at.  The left wing of the party, mainly intellectuals and manual workers, had in view more or less vague socialistic institutions; the liberals, for instance the traders, thought of a liberal democracy, more or less on the American pattern; and the nationalists merely wanted the removal of the alien Manchu rule.  The three groups had come together for the practical reason that only so could they get rid of the dynasty.  They gave unreserved allegiance to Sun Yat-sen as their leader.  He succeeded in mobilizing the enthusiasm of continually widening circles for action, not only by the integrity of his aims but also because he was able to present the new socialistic ideology in an alluring form.  The anti-republican gentry, however, whose power was not yet entirely broken, took a stand against the party.  The generals who had gone over to the republicans had not the slightest intention of founding a republic, but only wanted to get rid of the rule of the Manchus and to step into their place.  This was true also of Yuean Shih-k’ai, who in his heart was entirely on the side of the gentry, although the European press especially had always energetically defended him.  In character and capacity he stood far above the other generals, but he was no republican.