IO PEKING POLITICS,I9I8-1923 CONSTITUTIONALISM AND ITS FAILURE II and each generation held distinctive political views that were formed by ernization and the fact that the republic left them in,if anything,enhanced characteristic educational and career experiences.22 positions of power,was sufficient to win their acquiescence in the experiment. Men born in the 1860s belonged to the generation of the immediate followers In the generation of the 1870s,the experience of new-style education became of Yuan Shih-k'ai (born 1859).Tutoring in the Confucian classics in preparation more common.Kung Hsin-chan (1871),for example,studied at the foreign for government examinations remained the normal education for this genera- languages school in Nanking;Wu P'ei-fu(1872)was a graduate of the Peiyang tion.Holders of the chin-shih degree who were born in the 1860s and later Military Academy.Another common pattern for this generation was to pass became prominent republican era politicians included,for example,Tung K'ang the chii-jen examination,then enter the bureaucracy,picking up special skills (1866)and Ch'ien Neng-hsun(1868).Yet the educational experience of some of during subsequent assignments.Such chii-jen included P'an Fu (1870),Chu the most prominent members of the generation included a degree of technical, Ch'i-ch'ien (1871),Chang Kuo-kan(1872),Chang Hu(1875),and Wang K'o- foreign or new-style education.Chang I-lin(1864)and Liang Shih-i(1869)not min (1878),all experts in the area of finance.The pure classical education also only won traditional examination degrees but also passed a special public ad- remained in style:a prominent chin-shih of the 1870s generation was Hsiung ministration examination given in the late Ch'ing.Wang Chan-yuan(1860), Hsi-ling (1870).Overseas education,while still fairly unusual,continued to Wang Shih-chen (1861)and Ts'ao K'un(1862)were among the earliest officers grow in importance:Ch'en Chin-t'ao(1870)studied at Yale University,Ts'ao to graduate from the Peiyang Military Academy in Tientsin,which gave speci- Ju-lin(1875)at Waseda University,Yen Hui-ch'ing (1877)at the University of alized military education.A few military officers not only studied in China but Virginia,Wang I-t'ang(1878)at Hosei University. went abroad for further study:these included Tuan Ch'i-jui (1864),Li Yuan- As with the earlier generation,the new learning,if it came at all,came re- hung(1866),and Chang Shao-tseng(1869).There were other types of speci- latively late in the lives of the generation of the 1870s.Many of them had been alized study for this generation,too:Chou Tzu-ch'i(1868)was a graduate of the sufficiently tutored at home in the classics to pass the examinations for returned Canton and Peking foreign language institutes.A few members of this genera- students and enter the bureaucracy at high levels.23 New-style education,if tion,such as T'ang Shao-i(1860),even took the bulk of their higher education taken within China,retained a high traditional content,especially with regard abroad. to fundamental social and political values.24 Students who went abroad tended These men were not made instant constitutionalists by their exposure to the to be from wealthy families with stakes in the status quo.For all these reasons, new learning;constitutionalism was something most of them came to reluc- the 1870s cohort shared the fundamental political conservatism of their seniors. tantly after the disappointments of defeat by Japan in 1895 and the Boxer fiasco On the other hand,their greater exposure to both the technical and the political of 1900,or accepted as a fait accompli in 1911.Their commitment to the cultures of Japan and the West gave them greater facility in operating a republi- constitutional republic always remained imperfect(their generation provided can form of government and providing administrative leadership in fields like the main support for the Ch'ing-restoration schemes that were discussed and railway administration,finance,and foreign relations.The gencration was a occasionally tried),and their leadership of it was autocratic and personalistic. generous supplier of cabinet ministers to early republican governments. The new-style education had come to them too late in life-usually after a For the generation of the 1880s,pure classical education was no longer a traditional period of home training in the classics,and,except for the few who realistic option.Those who began their training with classical study aimed at studied overseas,without the added impact of an unsettling change of environ- the examinations had to shift course when examinations based on the classical ment-and they had passed too long a time in the service of the Ch'ing to be curriculum were abolished in 1905.35 Young men of this generation who aspired anything but ambivalent republicans.But in the end,the commitment to mod- 23.See Y.C.Wang,Chinese Intellectuals and the West,1872-1949(Chapel Hill,N.C.. 22.Unless otherwise noted,the biographical information in the following paragraphs 1966),pp.79,86-87.Ts'ao Ju-lin,Wang I-t'ang,Yen Hui-ch'ing,and Ch'en Chin-t'ao comes from the appropriate entries of the following sources:Gaimusho johobu,Gendai were all returned-student chin-shih. Shina jimmeikan (Tokyo,1924 and 1928),and Gendai Chika minkokn Manshi(tei)koku jim- 24.This remained so as late as the Kuomintang period.See Allen Berard Linden,"Poli- meikean (Tokyo,1932 and 1937),hereafter abbreviated as GIMK,1924;GIMK,1928; tics and Higher Education in China:The Kuomintang and the University Community. GIMK,1932;and GJMK,1937 respectively;and Yang Chia-lo,Min-kuo ming-jen r'u-chien 1927-1937"(Ph.D.diss.,Columbia University.1969),pp.113,182,236-37. (Nanking,1937)(hereafter abbreviated as MTC).See further footnotes in subsequent 25.For examples,see the biographies of Huang Fu in Howard L.Boorman and Richard chapters and appendix.Birthdates are given in parentheses;they must be regarded as ap- C.Howard,eds.Biographical Dictionary f Modern China (New York,1967-1971),2:188; proximate since sources often disagree on the exact year. and Chao Hsi-en in Who's Who,p.19