INTRODUCTION

Education in our day appears trapped in its own success. By broadening the base of an educated citizenry through near universal literacy, extended schooling and intensified communications, education in these times has become a mass effort. As such its management and implementation is facilitated by whatever is conducive to "objectification", and hence to abstraction from whatever develops the truly unique and personal, the free and creative.

In a fatal cycle increasingly the external and verifiable has become the central goal. As those trained by this approach themselves become teachers, the tendency is to intensify the focus upon the same limited and limiting objectives. In the process the sense of life, the meaning of person and family, the identity of persons and peoples, and the humane basis for public life and social cooperation atrophy.

Fortunately, the resulting sense of loss, emptiness and confusion which has increasingly pervaded personal and public life has now begun to generate a renewed awareness of the importance of that which had been forgotten. There is now a broadly shared consensus that the road ahead will be one of disaster and despair unless we are able, not merely to repeat, but to renew the missing dimensions of meaning found in our heritage. Preparation for the XXIst Century must consist in drawing creatively upon our cultural traditions in order: (a) to add over and above the ever more precise infinitesimal measurements the indispensable sense of innovation and freedom which is native to a life lived in terms of infinite truth; and (b) to humanize social, legal and political structures through deep commitment to a life of harmony with nature and with others inspired and empowered by infinite love.

The papers in this volume represent the beginnings of one effort in this direction. They were initially prepared for, and intensively discussed at, a symposium on the Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development. Its goal was to survey the resources available in the Chinese tradition and to lay more solid foundations for future work. In this the Chinese scholars were joined by a few participants in a parallel effort in North America. The resulting papers have been organized in three parts.

Part I concerns the resources of the classical Chinese philosophical heritage for moral education.

- In Chapter I, Prof. Peter Kun-yu Woo surveys the Chinese tradition for a context for this work in the terms in which life is lived. With sophisticated sensibility he traces the pervasive impact and continued transformation of the popular religiosity of the Pre-Chin period through the great importance of harmony and order in later periods. By contrasting this with the limited popularity of the legalist approach he points to the deeper metaphysical dimensions present in Chinese culture and available as foundations for moral education.

- Prof. Pei-jung Fu in Chapter II illustrates the properly moral implication of this foundation by showing how the resulting sense of human nature focuses upon the tendency toward goodness and implies a high sense of human conduct. This has carried Chinese life through many centuries and gives this people their special cohesion and diligence in facing the challenges of contemporary life.

- Prof. Thaddeus T'ui-chieh Hang in Chapter III brings out the often forgotten psychological sensitivity of this tradition, concentrating upon Hsin-Techniques and Hsin-Leadership. This makes it possible to integrate the spiritual resources of the Buddhist dimension of the Chinese heritage. It opens the way to concrete approaches to moral training which are integral to the culture and cohesive with the deeper meaning of the pattern of physical exercises practiced daily.

Part II turns to the philosophical resources in the Chinese and Western traditions for facing the problems of a technological age in which human life tends to be reduced to functions directed toward pragmatic goals. Meanwhile, the broad human aspirations and the democratic forms of public life call for responsible action by persons conscious of their dignity. There is need then to mobilize the resources of Chinese and Western philosophy in order to provide the foundations upon which to build such a self-understanding and a corresponding project of moral education in our day

- In Chapter IV Prof. John Farrelly opens a new and properly contemporary route to the sense of the real and hence to metaphysical bases for the meaning of life. By looking intensively into the various learning theories he points the way to a discovery of a sense of reality which transcends mere human constructs and shows its role in the coordination and implementation of all our thought.

- The meaning of this for the development of a sense of the person and its implications for moral education is the subject of Chapter V by Prof. George F. McLean. In view of the pluralistic character of our times it appeared helpful to trace a sequentially deepening and more dynamic sense of the person, including progressively that of one who plays a role in an enterprise or social structure, to a subject that is self-conscious, and finally to the responsible and freely creative person in his or her life with others.

- Prof. Vincent Shen in Chapter VI appplies this work by defining the character of present and future life in industrial and technological terms. He proceeds to suggest astutely some of the considerations which must be worked through in Chinese cultural areas. Given the impact of the East Asian region in the emerging pattern of world production and the important role being played by these peoples in the technological life of other countries, it can be expected that such reflections can yield important resources for efforts of all peoples to develop the value dimension of education.

Part III concerns the realization of moral education in our day. It treats the work of the programs in the schools and universities and their relation to teacher education to national policy and cultural evolution.

- Prof. Tran van Doan in Chapter VII studies the way in which this sense of personal and social identity has been developed in the Chinese cultural areas. This directs attention to the articulation of the metaphysical basis for the moral person in the long development of the Confucian tradition and the related educational programs in Taiwan today. Prof. Tran van Doan analyzes the nature of ideology in its positive and negative senses, employing the insights tools of Mannheim, Gadamer and Habermas, among many others. With these he reaches penetratingly into the Confucian tradition to renew the understanding of its dynamic social vitality and to point to the way in which this could be enabled to play a more creative role in the life of the Chinese people in our day.

- In Chapter VIII Prof. Arnold Sprenger reflects upon both the Confucian resources and the difficulties being experienced in Higher Education in Chinese cultural areas. As its graduates will be depended upon centrally in the future his recommendations for effectively implementing moral education at this level have special importance.

- Finally, Prof. Kevin Ryan in Chapter IX extends this challenge to teachers and future teachers at the secondary and primary level. The challenge he presents is great, but not out of proportion to the supreme importance of the task. Inspired in part by the seminar which elicited the work of this volume, and by the rich resources and deep concern of the Chinese tradition for moral training, he presents teachers and us all with a horizon of challenge, deeply grounded hope and high dedication.

This study extends the project on The Foundations of Moral Education and Character Development, previous volumes of which include: Philosophical Foundations; Psychological Foundations; and Character Development in Schools and Beyond described more fully at the end of this volume.

George F. McLean