Xiaoping Cong, 2007, Chapter 3, p. 72-74.
In 1912 and 1913, the new Ministry of Education began to design a school system that would manifest the Republican spirit. Its first edict was terminological: the modern schools established in the late Qing period would now be called “schools” (xuexiao) rather than “study halls” (xuetang). The ministry tried to erase all traces of imperial education by banning official Qing textbooks, the terms that referred to the imperial system and the Qing court, the study of Confucian classics in primary school, and the practice of awarding imperial titles to graduates. The unified educational system was meant to create enlightened citizens (guomin) for the new republic.
