“Educational Independence” and University as the Field of Academic Autonomy

This chapter focuses on Cai Yuanpei&s;s pursuit of “educational independence” to build Peking University (PKU) into an academically autonomous field. It notes that the four-round resignation struggle of Cai Yuanpei in 1919, involving conditional reinstatement and delaying return, defeated government attempts to replace him, laying groundwork for academic community autonomy. He also promoted professor governance, established administrative meetings, and later proposed a French-style university district system (though short-lived) to institutionalize autonomy. Cai Yuanpei also opposed Western church education to safeguard cultural autonomy, and prevented Confucianism&s;s religious tendency by abolishing Confucian classics courses, replacing religion with aesthetic education. Additionally, he separated learning from skills, removing business and engineering to uphold the university&s;s mission of pursuing advanced scholarship.