Chapter 19 Documents
Document 19.1 talks about a Confucian scholar whose views informed the hundred days of reform in 1898. Kang Youwei argued that the Chinese emperor could be an active agent for China's transformation while operating in a parliamentary and constitutional setting. In a memorial to the emperor in early 1898, Kang Youwei spelled out his understanding of what China needed. Document 19.2 talks about the education and examination. Those examinations were used to select the officials who governed China. For those seeking fundamental change in China, the examination system represented everything that was conservative, backward, and out of date. In 1905 the examination system was formally and permanently abolished. The two brief selections that follow makes the case for educational reform. The first comes from an anonymous editorial in the Chinese newspaper in 1898. And the second was reforming the Guangxi during the Hundred days of Reform. Document `9.3 talks about Gender, Reform, and Revolution. The question of Women roles in society has arose. For traditional marriage,, they were hoping it would be replaced by a series of one year contacts between man and women which would lead to gender equality. The most well known advocate women was Qui Jin. She was born into a well to do family with liberal inclinations and was married to a man who was much older at 18 years old. In 1903 she left her husband and children to pursue an education in Japan. Returning in 1906, she stayed a women's magazine and became in the revolutionary circles.