晚清上海的新知识空间

上海自19世纪六七十年代以后,由西语西学为中心的新知识系统、西书报刊及学校为载体的西学传播网络、社会生活与商务活动的实用需求为社会基础、士商合一的新知识群体、西语西学热形成的西学时尚氛围等,共同构成了一个新知识生态空间。这一空间的形成,及其所产生的效应,使晚清时期的上海,在整个社会传统知识仍占霸权地位、朝野主流一直对西学鄙视排斥的大环境下,成为一处西学新知迅速生长、并日渐占主导强势地位的小社会环境,为当时全国首屈一指的西学新知生长的温床,新文化的发展基地和传播中心。其形成的社会文化效应,对于新文化在中国社会的产生发展具有重要作用。

A New Knowledge Space in Late Qing Shanghai

Ever since 1860s and 1870s, a space of new knowledge had been constructed together by a new system of knowledge with Western languages and Western studies as the center, a communication network of Western studies with Western books, newspapers, journals and schools as the carriers, the practical needs in social life and commercial activities as the social foundation, a new group of the educated merchants, and an fashionable atmosphere of Western studies. The formation of this space as well as its effect made Shanghai in late Qing Dynasty a small social context of fast-growing Western new knowledge and gradually occupied a leading position while in the large context in which the hegemony was still controlled by traditional knowledge in the whole society and the main stream of the whole country had looked down upon the Western studies. It became a number one incubator of the Western new knowledge, a basis for the development of new culture, and a transmitting center in China. Its social-cultural effect played an important part for the birth and development of new culture in Chinese society.