China

An intellectual revolution

An intellectual revolution took place during the first decade of the republic, sometimes referred to as the New Culture Movement. It was led by many of the new intellectuals, who held up for critical scrutiny nearly all aspects of Chinese culture and traditional ethics. Guided by concepts of individual liberty and equality, a scientific spirit of inquiry, and a pragmatic approach to the nation’s problems, they sought a much more profound reform of China’s institutions than had resulted from self-strengthening or the republican revolution. They directed their efforts particularly to China’s educated youth.

In September 1915 Chen Duxiu (Ch’en Tu-hsiu), who had studied in Japan and France, founded Xinqingnian (“New Youth”) magazine to oppose Yuan’s imperial ambitions and to regenerate the country’s youth. This quickly became the most popular reform journal, and in 1917 it began to express the iconoclasm of new faculty members at Peking University (Beida), which Chen had joined as dean of the College of Letters. Peking University, China’s most prestigious institution of higher education, was being transformed by its new chancellor, Cai Yuanpei (Ts’ai Yüan-p’ei), who had spent many years in advanced study in Germany. Cai made the university a centre of scholarly research and inspired teaching. The students were quickly swept into the New Culture Movement. A proposal by Hu Shih (Hu Shi), a former student of the American philosopher John Dewey, that literature be written in the vernacular language (baihua) rather than the classical style won quick acceptance. By 1918 most of the contributors to Xinqingnian were writing in baihua, and other journals and newspapers soon followed suit. Students at Peking University began their own reform journal, Xinchao (“New Tide”). A new experimental literature inspired by Western forms became highly popular, and scores of new literary journals were founded.