A Research into Activities Held for Paying Respect to Confucius During the Period of Late Qing Dynasty and the Early Republic of China

The activities of paying respect to Confucius are the key content of Confucian culture as well as one of the important rites to maintain the stability of Chinese society.However, such regular cultural activities experienced the great impacts they had ever seen in the modern appeal in the period of late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.These included the traditional literati’s and officials’ choice between reservation and abandonment of such activities in the turbulent situation and then effort to achieve the reconstruction of Confucian identification.Further, they also involved the different strategies of advancing or retreating adopted by Western Christianity for these traditional activities to achieve the cultural invasion purpose of Jesus’ s replacement of Confucius.And they even included the country gentlemen’s attitude of rejection and acceptance of such activities in an attempt to exert influence of ethic power on the real power of the upper stratum.