ABSTRACT
The Boxer Uprising and the empress dowager's order that all foreigners should be killed represent extreme examples of the traditional approach of the Chinese to autonomous development. Member of the Chinese Communist Party and Government leaders were initially willing to adopt Soviet policies. The Chinese experience has been somewhat different, although the educational policies pursued after Mao's death are not dissimilar to Soviet policies in the nineteen thirties. Consequently the educational ideology imported from the Soviet Union differed in many respects from orthodox Chinese educational ideology. The achievement of universal primary education soon became a goal towards which governments throughout the world directed their attention. Of importance in an analysis of debates about higher education are the extent to which it was available, the concepts of scholarship which informed it and the power enjoyed either vicariously as teachers or directly as officials, by those who had gained recognition as scholars.
