Factors of Modernization of Higher Education in Chinese Society in the Period Before the Xinhai Revolution

The article is devoted to an attempt to comprehend the prerequisites of the initial stage of modernization of higher education in China, the leading of which is the historical and cultural foundations of this process. The analysis of the features of the modernization of the Chinese higher education system is carried out on the basis of Chinese sources representing the characteristics of the modernization of higher education in the period before the Xinhai Revolution. The subject is the prerequisites of the early stage of modernization of Chinese higher education. The scientific novelty of the article is associated with the development of factors for the modernization of higher education in China. The methodology of the undertaken research is based on: meaningful, functional, historical and evolutionary approach developed in the works of Chinese authors. The result of the study is the position that Chinese education is a set of specific models rooted in the traditional historical background of China. However, the factors of the formation of the higher education system in China were influenced by Western countries, which got the opportunity to participate politically, economically, scientifically and spiritually in the life of the country in the second half of the XIXth century. As the authors show, under the conditions of modernization of the education system in China, higher education opened the era of going beyond tradition and became the basis of the system of production of qualified personnel aimed at the development of a society focused on Western patterns of culture and production.