本文旨在阐述晚清上流社会的一些有识之士构成的特殊群体与早期近代化运动的关系,并由此透视这一运动过程怎样通过人的因素而发生作用。开埠后的沿海江浙沪粤等地区,出现了一批得风气之先者,他们虽处于上流社会的中下层,却关心时务,富于远见卓识。凭借开放后得天独厚的条件,他们获得了有关西方近代文化的知识,并通过湘淮军大幕,贡献所得于当政诸僚。由此他们发起了早期近代化运动并成为其中的骨干力量,正面推进了传统中国向近代化转变的进程。但是,由这样一些受传统哺育的官绅士子来进行转变社会传统的工作,又不可避免地使转变过程充满回旋与曲析。传统社会正是这样艰难地向近代化迈进。 The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the relationship between the special groups of some people of insight and the early modernization movements in the high society in the late Qing Dynasty and to see how the process of the movement can play its role through human factors. After the opening of the coastal areas such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Guangdong, there emerged a group of pioneers of the trend. Although they are in the lower middle class, they are concerned about the current affairs and are far-sighted. By virtue of the blessed conditions after the opening up, they gained knowledge of the modern Western culture and, through the big screen of the Hunan Huai Army, contributed their entitlements to the ranks of the people in power. As a result, they initiated and became the backbone of the early modernization movement, positively advancing the process of transforming traditional China into a modern one. However, the transformation of social traditions by such traditional gentleman-nurtured gentry members inevitably inflams the transformation process and analyzes it. It is so difficult for the traditional society to move toward modernization.