中国自古尤重教育，《礼记》有曰：“建国君民，教学为先。”教与学一直是国家建设、治国安民的要务。清代形成了一整套较为完整的府州县学考学系统，但此考学系统并不负责儿童的启蒙教育。一般来说，古代儿童的启蒙由蒙馆、私塾、义学、社学等机构承担，启蒙教育以培养“圣贤坯璞”为最高使命，塾师也多以“蒙以养正，圣功也”的理念作为毕生教育事业的追求。

    鸦片战争之后，“师夷长技”的策略和逐步明晰的“自强运动”开始成为中国社会的主流思潮。1895年震惊朝野的甲午战败后，爱国士人们的强国、救国方式也出现了多种路线。革命派希望能够用激烈的手段实现社会之变革，完成自救；而另一部分士人则希望借改良教育来逐步实现国家自强。本研究着眼于后一路线，试图考察和研究“学战立国”中新政蒙学建设的自强逻辑，探寻其中所包含的优秀传统文化内容。

为了更全面把握清末新政蒙学建设，研究先考察了“变局”之前的传统蒙学概况，分析“千年未有之大变局”下蒙学所遭遇的困境和实现自身改变的动力。而后，研究专注于清末新政中颁布的两个学制，分别探讨每个学制中的蒙学设计方案和学制落实情况。在清末新政颁布的第一个壬寅学制中，儿童启蒙教育由蒙学堂承担。蒙学堂被置于大学堂体系的最基础环节，发挥守护“中体”的根柢作用。这部分研究详述了《钦定蒙学堂章程》颁布前、颁布时及颁布后的蒙学堂建设情况，着眼分析蒙学堂建设对传统蒙学发展的促进作用及其在特定历史时期的价值。在新政颁布的第二个癸卯学制中，改革者重订了启蒙教育方案，强调蒙养与家教相合一。《奏定蒙养院章程及家庭教育法章程》调整了蒙养内容，并督促各地开展蒙养院建设，让新政蒙学进入了新的发展阶段。整体上看，研究以儿童启蒙教育机构设立为经线，以教育内容、教育对象和教育者变化为纬线，呈现了新政蒙学建设的完整进程。

研究发现：首先，清末新政蒙学建设在学战背景下诞生，“蒙养强国”的现实目标将儿童启蒙教育直接与近代国家建设、强国保种紧密联系到了一起。其次，清末新政教育改革首次从人才培养角度将蒙学纳入到国家教育系统之中，传统蒙学在效法西式学制、兴学校的过程中实现了中国儿童启蒙教育逐步专业化的发展。新政效仿西洋义务教育，在制度层面保障了全体儿童的受教育权，并让女性也有可能成为蒙养“圣贤坯璞”的师资，扩大了教育者和受教育者的范围。第三，清末新政蒙学发展体现了近代中西方文明交往过程中传统蒙学自身的发展逻辑，在学战背景下以蒙学守护文化原点，形成了应对西方冲击的“吸收、包容”模式。这些独有的逻辑和模式，显示出了传统中国在文化教育领域的包容性和连续感，沉淀有中国文化中的“社会遗传基因”。

   Education has been attached great importance to China since its ancient times. The “Li Ji”（《礼记》，Book of Rites）reads: “Founding a nation, teaching first.” Teaching has always been the top priority for national construction and administration. In the Qing Dynasty, a complete set of Fuzhou county examination system was formed, but this system did not involve the children's enlightenment education. In general, the children’s enlightenment education was undertaken by the institutions outside the system, such as rural Mengguan(蒙馆), private family school，Yixue(义学), Shexue(社学), etc. The traditional enlightenment education focused on cultivating each child to be “Uncut and Unrefined Of A sage”, and most of the teachers carried out the idea, “Let child to grow up in a right way is a Supreme Achievement”, as their lifelong pursuit.

After the Opium War, Chinese society has encountered “No great change in the Millennium”. The strategy of "learning from foreigners and developing skills" and the "Self-improvement Movement" gradually began to being as the mainstream trend. After the defeat of the Sino Japanese War that shocked the government and the public in 1895, there were various ways for Patriots to strengthen and save their country. Revolutionaries hope to achieve social change and self-help by drastic means, while other scholars hope to gradually realize national self-improvement by improving education. This research focuses on the latter line, trying to investigate and study the self-improvement logic of the new educational policy on the construction of Traditional Mengxue, and to explore the outstanding Spiritual elements contained in Chinese traditional culture.

In order to have a more comprehensive view of the construction of the new policy in the late Qing Dynasty, the study first examines the general situation of Traditional Mengxue before the "Change", and analyzes the predicament and the motive force of the elementary school under “the Great Change in the Millennium”. Then, the research focuses on the two school systems promulgated in the new policy in the late Qing Dynasty, and discusses the design scheme and implementation of Mengxue in each school system.

In the first Renyin school system issued by the new policy in the late Qing Dynasty, the children’s enlightenment education was undertaken by Meng School(蒙学堂) which was designed as the important part of the whole School System. Meng School played a fundamental role in protecting Chinese culture in the Reform. This part of the study details the construction of the Meng School before, during, and after the promulgation of the Renyin school system(壬寅学制). It focuses on analyzing the promotion on the development of traditional Mengxue caused by the construction of the Meng School and the value of the construction of the Meng School in a specific historical period. In the second school system, Guimao school system(癸卯学制), the reformers reformulated the enlightenment education program, emphasized the unity of children’s enlightenment education and family education, adjusted the contents of Mengxue, and urged the construction of Mengyang School(蒙养院) around the country, so that the construction of the new policy entered a new stage. On the whole,  the research takes the establishment of children's enlightenment education institutions as longitude and the changes of educational contents, objects and educators as latitude，and tries to present the complete process of the construction of the Mengxue in new policy.

The specific conclusions including: Firstly, the construction of the Mengxue in new policy in the late Qing Dynasty was born in the context of the academic war. The realistic goal of "strengthen the country through education" directly linked children's enlightenment education with modern country construction and its management. Secondly, in the new deal, children's enlightenment education was included into the national education system for the first time. In the process of imitating the Western-style school system and revitalizing schools, traditional Mengxue education embarked on a professional path of development gradually. The new deal also followed the compulsory education in the Western, guaranteed the right to education of all children at the institutional level, and allowed women to become teachers to cultivate children. These policies expanded the scope of educators and educated people. Finally, the development of Mengxue in the new deal in the late Qing Dynasty embodies the development logic of traditional Mengxue in the process of modern Chinese-Western civilization exchanges. In the context of academic war, Mengxue was used to guarding the origin of Chinese culture and forming an "absorption and tolerance" model to deal with Western shocks. These unique logic and model show the tolerance and continuity in the field of traditional Chinese culture and education, and the sedimentary accretion of “social genetics” in Chinese culture.