江西早期的新式学堂,迄今鲜为史家瞩目,是个有待耕耘的研究角落。本文拟对江西早期新式学堂的产生、状况、作用等问题作些微探讨,以期收到抛砖引玉的效果。一、先天不足的难产儿仿佛是为了表现个性,江西早期的新式学堂,既不象北京京师同文馆那样独步一时,也未能与上海广方言馆、广东实学馆、福州船政学堂同时起步,甚至落伍于长沙的时务学堂,直到二十世纪初年才正式产生。其实,它的难产,并不是因为在母体内营养过剩,硕大难出,也不是赣人冥顽难化,喜旧拒新,而是先天不足,机缘迟逢的结果。早在十九世纪四十年代,林则徐、魏源等人,已在朦胧地呼唤新式学堂。出于“师夷制夷”的愿望,林氏在使粤禁烟之初,就“日日使人刺探西事,翻译西书,并购买其新闻纸”,着意研讨外来的西学。在他左右,出现了规模初具的翻译研究班底,涉猎范围包括 Early Jiangxi New School, hitherto rarely noted for the historians, is a study corner to be cultivated. This article intends to make a brief discussion on the emergence, status and functions of early modern school in Jiangxi so as to receive the effect of initiating new ideas. First, congenital dystocia seems to be to show individuality, Jiangxi early new school, neither like Beijing Capital Normal University as a stand alone, nor with the Shanghai Guang dialect, Guangdong real school, Fuzhou shipping school started at the same time, or even The time school, which lagged behind Changsha, did not officially emerge until the early twentieth century. In fact, its dystocia does not result from overnutrition in the mother’s body. It is neither a stubborn obstacle nor a rejection by the old people, but a result of congenitality and late chance. As early as the 1940s, Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan et al., Have been calling for a new style of school happily. Out of his desire to “rule the barbarians and control the barbarians,” Lin at the beginning of the ban on smoking in Guangdong made deliberations on “foreign spying of Western affairs day by day, translation of the Western books, and the purchase of his newsprint.” Around him, the scale of the beginning of a translation research team, range covered