Abstract: Connecting the past and the present, tradition is a stable and continuous culture heritage, handed down from generation to generation. Educational tradition is a kind of education concept generated constantly, representing the extension from the past to the future. Unfortunately, educational tradition tends to be regarded as the opposite of modern education in the process of Chinese education modernization. And in the past educational heritage was criticized by enlightener as something nasty to be abandoned. In fact, tradition is not fixed but fluid in the chain of transmitted variants. Education development is a process of constant reconstruction of educational traditions. Education modernization is not completely deviated from tradition but the optimization of tradition and the unity of inheritance and innovation. However, impacted by the external force, the superior consciousness among Chinese intellectuals is gradually replaced by inferiority and self-doubt. They believe that their own educational tradition is good for nothing rather than good for anything. In this article, we argue that only when educational tradition is respected can people realize educational enlightenment. And in the modernization of Chinese education, it's important to handle the relationship between the traditional and the modern. That's to say, we can neither defend stubbornly tradition nor abandon educational tradition. Therefore, it's necessary that we reconstruct educational tradition and realize educational enlightenment in the chain of transmitted variants of a tradition. Chinese education has its own particular tradition. People can't transplant blindly from others regardless of educational tradition. Also, it's not advisable to adhere to educational tradition, or spurn the modern, or ignore tradition and transplant blindly. When introducing western programs of education modernization, attention should be paid to the Chinese context and the education tradition.

Key words: modernization of Chinese education, educational tradition, the chain of transmitted variants of a tradition, enlightenment