京师同文馆与晚清“学生—译员计划”

旨在落实培养“学生—译员计划”的京师同文馆,一般也被视为晚清洋务运动的一部分,有人甚至将其作为洋务派更为宏大的教育改革、政治改革计划的开端。但是,同文馆努力试图在外国语言学校与西方化的近代学院之间、在西学与中学之间保持的平衡,并非从一开始就呈现了出来,也不是所谓的在语言学校的掩护之下来试图对中国传统教育和文官制度进行的“改革”,而是有着它自身发展的历史逻辑性。探讨同文馆在自我定位和实际处境之间的不断谨慎调整之原因并对其过程进行解读,对于同文馆与晚清“学生—译员计划”的重新认识,乃至对于十九世纪后二十年所发生的中学、西学之争的认识,都具有一定的启示意义。

The Imperial College and the Student-Interpreter Scheme of Late Qing Dynasty

As the critical part of the Student-Interpreter Scheme of late Qing Dynasty, the Tongwen College is also considered as one part of the whole modernization plan of the central and local government, which originally focused on the schooling of the students-interpreters, but was also considered as the beginning of the educational and political reform launched from the second half of the 19th century. However, its great efforts paid to keep balance between a foreign language and a modern college with the characteristics of modern western higher education, as well as between the traditional Chinese studies and the western studies, did not reveal at the very beginning, but gradually and historically logically developed on its only track. To make a historical research of the Tongwen College, particularly its scrupulous adjustment between its self-identification and practical situation, will be helpful to reappraise the whole modernization movement in the late Qing Dynasty.