Capabilities of Self-Cultivation: Zhu Xi's Educational Thought in the Era of Permanent Reform

This paper reexamines the relationship between virtue-based self‑cultivation and capability-focused education in later-imperial China, arguing that their apparent fusion in the scholar‑official tradition obscures their distinct origins and purposes. While Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the Great Learning grounded education in a transformative ethical practice radiating outward from personal cultivation, late‑Qing reformers such as Zhang Zhidong reframed education as a universal project to strengthen state and society by developing human capability. Yet the spiritual and individual dimensions of Zhang’s vision failed to take root, leaving modern educational discourse dominated by material incentives and thin appeals to abstract social goods. I argue that the eclipse of self‑cultivation created a persistent tension between utopian promises of societal transformation and narratives of perpetual educational crisis. Without a robust account of how education meaningfully shapes persons, systems risk functioning as large-scale conscription into disciplinary routines once reserved for voluntary scholarly vocations.