This book evaluates early attempts to modernize Chinese schooling, the Chinese response to the penetration of Western ideas, and education in the Republic of China prior the the take-over by the Communist Party. China's education system is of immense international significance, containing 177 million students whose talents and skills will take China into the 21st century. China's remarkable achievements and continuing problems hold lessons for educators worldwide. The outcomes of the modernization of China's education system are of immense international significance. Its regular schools and universities contain some 177 million students -- a significant percentage of the world's young people -- whose talents and skills will take China into the 21st century. In these times of global interdependency, the young people of China must be considered a world resource, as well as a national one. Traditionally, education was highly valued in China. Prior to the modern period there were two distinctive kinds of schooling: one serving the high culture of a governing elite, the other the daily demands of the empire's industrious artisans and traders. Literally within living memory, this structure has been replaced by mass education based on modern schools. The formative years of the Communist Party of China brought new approaches to schooling based on inventive indigenous interpretations; the party gained significant first-hand experience in educational administration. After 1957, strenuous attempts were made to reconstruct schooling along local, socialist lines. The Cultural Revolution had a major impact, especially on teachers. Since 1977 the Chinese have sought to use their schools as an instrument of modernization, increasingly taking an outward-looking perspective. All students and researchers in Asian studies and comparative education will welcome this informative book. "John Cleverley is a long-time observer of Chinese education. He is Professor of Education, and Head of the School of Social and Policy Studies in Education, at the University of Sydney, and he makes regular visits to China. He is the author of many books and articles on education both in Australia and internationally.".