Dewey’s influence on pedagogical professions

Abstract

Like Dewey, also Guo Bingwen believed that education was the key to reorganizing society. In his opinion, Confucianism was responsible for China’s backwardness because under its influence the innovative spirit of the Chinese scholars was strongly suppressed, so that the system of the classical civil servant examination was completely alienated from social progress and human life (cf. Guo Bingwen 1915, 35, 64). Guo took Dewey’s democratic education as a standard and criticized the elite formation of a small class in the early Republic period, which led to a two-class society: Higher education as a tool for for the training of loyal civil servants was promoted by the government for securing its power.. At the same time, the education of broad sections of the population was neglected (cf. ibid., 63).