In search of liberty - Yan Fu's San Min and Spenserian strategies

Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854-1921) is widely considered to be a seminal translator, enlightenment thinker and pioneer educator in modern China. Contemporary Yan Fu studies has explored his translations and translation theory, his thought influenced by Western liberal thinkers, as well as his educational thought and practices. The three principal perspectives on his work and its significance are represented by prominent Yan Fu scholars Benjamin Schwartz, Li Zehou and Huang Kewu. While these three perspectives diverge in contentions concerning the overall thrust of Yan Fu’s thought, they nevertheless converge on his focus on education. Schwartz argued that Yan Fu’s intellectual endeavour was directed to the quest for national wealth and power, to which individual liberty could be subordinated; Huang Kewu acknowledged Yan Fu’s contribution to liberalism with Western outer values and Chinese inner ones; Li Zehou regarded Yan Fu as an enlightenment thinker and pioneer educator. In none of these perspectives, however, is entailed close attention to the core of the relationship between Yan Fu’s notion of liberty per se, and the specific educational philosophy he developed throughout his career. Importantly, what may have received too little attention has been the influence of Herbert Spencer’s work on Yan Fu’s vision for the aims and practices of education.
This thesis aims to investigate this relationship by examining the dynamics among Yan Fu’s pursuit of liberty, Herbert Spencer’s liberal influences, and the San Min principle. Spencer’s influences were encapsulated in Yan Fu’s coinage of Spencerian Strategies, featuring tianyan 天演 (Heavenly Evolution), qun 群 (group, nation, or society), and education. In his life-long pursuit of liberty, for individuals and for the nation, Yan Fu proposed San Min 三民 (Three People) in 1896 and San Yu 三育 (Three Education) in 1906. San Min was a cultural strategy for reforming the society by enhancing people’s physical strength, intellectual capacity, and moral integrity. Yan Fu regarded San Min as the way to realise individual liberty, national independence, wealth and power. San Yu was the modern educational goal after the fall of keju, the imperial examination system. San Min focused on intellectual enhancement and San Yu on moral education. The research concludes that Yan Fu was a pioneering figure in Chinese liberal education on whose work the influence of western liberal thinkers, particularly Spencer, has not yet been fully explored.
This thesis uses translations of primary sources including Yan Fu’s original works, written in a particular type of classical Chinese language, and works by Yan Fu’s influencers, such as Herbert Spencer, Thomas Henry Huxley, and John Stuart Mill. Secondary sources include seminal monographs and articles by scholars in relevant fields of studies.
This thesis will contribute to further research on modern Chinese liberal education leading up to the end of the first half of the twentieth century.