女子需要什麼科學常識？從「人的教育」與「賢妻良母」之爭談新文化的知識觀

What Scientific Konwledge Does a Woman Need? A Debate over Women's Education

本文以五四時期商務印書館出版的《婦女雜誌》為中心，探討「人的教育」與「賢妻良母」兩種教育理念的對立，以及其中衍生的科學知識觀。清末民初的女子教育以培育賢妻良母為宗旨，盛行男女內外有別思想，並重視女子家事科目實踐。新文化運動興起以「人」為本的價值觀，強調人的覺醒、人的解放等新觀念，企圖打破傳統束縛。這種思潮也擴及到女子教育的改革。由章錫琛、周建人編輯的《婦女雜誌》，便是1920年代倡導激進改革的代表。《婦女雜誌》追隨日本作家與謝野晶子的思想，提倡「人的教育」來對抗賢妻良母思想，認為教育應該以培養獨立人格為宗旨，使學生成為完整的「人」。周建人的二哥周作人也在《婦女雜誌》上發表一套常識綱要，闡述女子應具備什麼樣的科學知識，廣受讀者好評。周作人的常識綱要從個人身心與性的知識開始，到生物學與人類社會，再到關於自然現象的物質科學，構成從個人逐步向外層遞的知識脈絡。另外，周作人對特定知識如進化論、遺傳論、社會學（人類學）的強調，也可看出社會達爾文主義以及「社會文化進化論」（sociocultural evolution）在20世紀初的流行，反映了新文化人士的知識觀。無論在章錫琛「人的教育」論述或周作人的常識體系中，「實用」的家政技藝與職業教育皆毫無立足之地。

Women's education in early twentieth-century China centered on the ideology of xianqiliangmu (wise wives, good mothers) to prepare female students for household life through domestic science. This ideology was based on the theory of physical and psychological differences between men and women that emphasized women's natural duties of raising children and maintaining households. The New Culture Movement (c.1915-1925) challenged traditional values and stressed humanistic thinking. This trend also influenced women's education, and some activists called for a total reform. The Ladies Journal (Funüzazhi), under the editorship of Zhang Xichen and Zhou Jianren, was a representative stronghold for advocating radical reforms in the first half of the 1920s. Inspired by the works of the Japanese writer Yosano Akiko, Zhang and Zhou promoted rendejiaoyu (humankind education) as opposed to xianqiliangmu. The objective of rendejiaoyu was to cultivate a whole and independent personality. Zhou's brother Zhou Zuoren also proposed an outline of “common knowledge” in The Ladies' Journal, in which he elaborated on his ideal curriculum of scientific knowledge to promote rendejiaoyu. Zhou Zuoren's outline reflected a multi-layered structure: from knowledge about individual bodies, minds, and sex, to biology and human society, and on to the physical sciences and the arts. His system of knowledge also reflected a strong influence from contemporary sociological or anthropological theories such as social Darwinism and sociocultural evolution.