The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1929 (Berkeley Series in Interdisciplinary Studies of China, 3)

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The Power of Position

BERKELEY SERIES IN INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES OF CHINA Published in collaboration with the Center for Chinese Studies Wen-hsin Yeh, Editor 1.

The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917–1937, by Shu-mei Shih

2.

Is Taiwan Chinese?: The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities, by Melissa J. Brown

3.

The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898–1929, by Timothy B. Weston

The Power of Position Beijing University, Intellectuals, and Chinese Political Culture, 1898–1929

Timothy B. Weston

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley

.

Los Angeles

.

London

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2004 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Weston, Timothy B. The power of position : Beijing University, intellectuals, and Chinese political culture, 1898–1929 / Timothy B. Weston. p. cm. — (Berkeley series in interdisciplinary studies of China; 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0–520–23767–6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Beijing da xue—History. 2. Higher education and state—China—History. 3. Political culture— China—History. I. Title. II. Series. lg51.P28 w47 2004 379.51—dc21 2003002463 Manufactured in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine-free (TCF). It meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). 1

For Marcia

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction: Locating Beijing University in History

1

1. Schools, Politics, and Reform in the Nineteenth Century

12

2. The Imperial University and Late-Qing Beijing

40

3. Instability and Redefinition in the Wake of the 1911 Revolution

78

4. Between the Old Culture and the New

114

5. The Insistent Pull of Politics

147

6. Tensions within the May Fourth Movement

182

7. National University under Siege

215

Conclusion

250

Abbreviations Used in Notes

255

Notes

257

Bibliography

293

Index

313


This book is the product of intertwined personal and intellectual journeys. Since 1986 I have had several opportunities to live, study, and make friends at Beijing University (or Beida).1 Since 1988 I also have focused on Beida as a subject of academic study. Without doubt, my experiences there in the 1980s and 1990s have informed my understanding of its past. When I arrived at Beijing University for language study in the fall of 1986, I came with romantic ideas. In college history courses at the University of Wisconsin I had developed an interest in the May Fourth intellectuals and in China’s protracted revolutionary process. I knew that the May Fourth Movement had started at Beida and hoped to recapture some of its flavor during my year there. The beautiful Beida campus in Beijing’s northwest suburbs further stoked my imagination. From 1926 to 1952 it had belonged to Yanjing University; for several centuries before that, the location was home to a series of prized garden estates belonging to members of the elite. These estates had been designed to recreate the physical appearance and spirit of the Jiangnan landscape, with which so many members of the late imperial literati were intimately familiar.2 But I did not need to know any of this to be moved by the beauty of the campus. The Western Hills are visible on the horizon, walkways meander through bamboo and evergreen groves, pavilions and stone relics surround No-Name Lake (Weiming hu), whose calm surface mirrors the imposing pagoda on its bank. All these scenes transported me back in time. ix

x


Yet also discernible within this peaceful setting were the unmistakable traces of the politics of the recent past: the towering statue of Chairman Mao in front of the library; an abandoned network of eerie, water-filled bomb shelter tunnels; and on walls all over campus ghostly, faded slogans from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Early in my stay I read Yue Daiyun’s To the Storm, a moving account of one professor’s life at Beida before and during the Cultural Revolution, and as I did so this harsher landscape intruded ever more on my consciousness.3 My understanding of the horrors that occurred at the university during the last decade of the Mao era grew exponentially for a personal reason too, for a faculty member’s family all but adopted me that fall; as I grew closer to them, they proceeded to share with me firsthand accounts of the tragedies they had suffered during the Cultural Revolution. Within a few months, I had developed an interest in Beida’s more recent history every bit as strong as my interest in its May Fourth past. Toward the end of the first semester, though, my attention abruptly shifted to the politics of the present when a pro-democracy protest movement launched by students in Anhui Province spread to Shanghai and to the capital. On January 1, 1987, a frigidly cold day, I witnessed a throng of students burst through a police cordon set up on the periphery of Tiananmen Square. I watched in alarm as a police vehicle wound its way through the crowd so a cameraman could capture the demonstrators’ faces on film, and as security forces wrestled students to the ground and then arrested them. All of this was very exciting to me; I was thrilled to be in the presence of students that I considered heroes. I was therefore surprised to learn that my Beida “family” did not agree with me, that they were in fact ambivalent at best about the demonstration. I knew the members of this family favored democratization and I even thought of them, romantically, as dissidents; how could they not wholeheartedly support the students? At first, I believed they were simply afraid. Over time, however, I came to see that they opposed the protests both because they suspected that political leaders waging intraparty power struggles were using the students as pawns and, just as importantly, because they abhorred political activism that smacked of the revolutionary style of the Mao era. I was still puzzling over this when I began graduate school at Berkeley the next year, and so elected to write a research paper on Cultural Revolution–era Beida in hopes of better understanding how the political atmosphere at the university had evolved between the 1960s and the 1980s. Then came the momentous events of spring 1989, in which Bei-


xi

jing University again played a leading role. The tragic ending to those events led me to ask new questions. How to account for the fact that Beijing University has been so centrally involved in nationally important political and cultural upheavals over the course of the twentieth century? Why does its historical importance transcend that of a mere institution of higher education? To begin to answer such questions, I decided to focus my dissertation on the university’s early history and, influenced by Lynn Hunt’s masterful study of political culture and the invention of ideology during the French Revolution, to concentrate on the symbols, assumptions, and social practices that constituted the culture within which political ideas took form and political actions were carried out. I arrived at Beida in the fall of 1992 to do my dissertation research concerned that my topic was too sensitive. Three years after the massive movement of 1989, would a foreign researcher interested in intellectuals and politics, even in the early twentieth century, be welcome? Again, I was in for a surprise. First, I was warmly welcomed; and second, few of the students and professors with whom I talked during the year evinced any enthusiasm for political activism. Furthermore, echoing sentiments that I had encountered within my Beida family in 1987, many people told me they believed the students had gone too far in 1989, though I did not meet anybody who thought the government’s use of murderous violence was warranted. Some of the people who expressed these ideas had themselves been participants in 1989, and most of them, I suspect, would have identified themselves as liberals. Still, on the whole, they had adopted a cautious attitude on the question of whether intellectuals should engage in confrontational, public protest movements. For the time being, revolutionary-style politics, whether directed by the government or against it, seemed to have run its course. The two years I spent at Beida are reflected in the central themes addressed in this book. For example, my experiences led me to be intensely interested in the ways intellectuals have positioned themselves in relation to politics, society, and the state in twentieth-century China, and in the process by which conscious and unconscious ideas, values, and practices combine to shape political culture. The time I spent at Beida also impressed upon me how important it is to understand the dialectical relationship between newer and older ways of thinking among intellectuals in periods of revolutionary political change. In particular, I became very interested in the relationship between Chinese intellectuals’ elitism and their political and cultural ideals, and in the strategies they have used to try to put those ideals into practice.

xii


To the extent that these themes are compelling and that this book is valuable, I am indebted to a great many people. I benefited immensely from the insights and knowledge that Frederic Wakeman and Yeh Wenhsin shared with me as I wrote the dissertation on which this book is based. Since then, I have received a great deal more inspiration and guidance from Yeh Wen-hsin, for which I am most grateful. In Beijing, I received valuable intellectual or practical help from Guo Jianrong, Jin Anping, Liu Guisheng, Wang Shuo, Xiao Chaoran, and Zhang Jiqian. In Taibei I incurred debts to Shen Songqiao, Tao Yinghui, and Wang Fansen. Several people kindly read and commented on parts or all of the book manuscript at one stage or another. I am grateful to Carlton Benson, Tim Cheek, Jay Dautcher, Neil Diamant, Arif Dirlik, Martin Fackler, Susan Glosser, Mark Halperin, Lionel Jensen, Joan Judge, Keith Knapp, Chris Reed, Ed Ruestow, and Jeff Wasserstrom for their helpful suggestions and corrections. Don Price, David Strand, and Takashi Fujitani, the readers for the University of California Press, each gave me invaluable suggestions for which I am most grateful. I also wish to thank Sheila Levine, Reed Malcolm, and Kate Warne at the University of California Press for seeing this book through to completion; and John Ziemer at the Harvard University Asia Center for his belief in this project, as well as the anonymous reader he selected, who made valuable suggestions. The manuscript benefited from the careful editorial work performed by Ruth Steinberg and Nancy Mann. Finally, a number of people provided other kinds of intellectual assistance or helped with materials. For their help I wish to thank Abe Hiroshi, Martha Hanna, Paula Harrell, Michel Hockx, Hong Yue, Lydia Liu, Steve MacKinnon, Susan Naquin, Mike Puett, Axel Schneider, Shen Zhijia, Yue Shengyang, and Peter Zarrow. Parts of Chapter 1 appeared in article form in Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002); and parts of Chapter 3 appeared as “The Formation and Positioning of the New Culture Community, 1913–1917,” in Modern China 24, no. 3 (1998). I am grateful for the permission to quote from those articles. Over the years a number of funding agencies assisted me with the research and writing of this book. I received financial backing from the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China, the Spencer Foundation, and the University of California. At the University of Colorado at Boulder I received assistance from both the


xiii

Graduate Committee on the Arts and Humanities and the Council on Research and Creative Work. I truly appreciate the support of all of those agencies. Without love and encouragement from my family this book could not have been written. Thank you Mom, Dad, Rabbit, Nanno, Charlie, Marta, Eduardo, Mary, Jimmy, and Maggie. During the many years that this project has been under way, Marcia Yonemoto, to whom the book is dedicated, has given me more than I can possibly repay—her intelligence, example, and willingness to read countless drafts have made all the difference. Most importantly, I thank her for her love and for the gift of our daughter, Leah.

i n t ro du c t i o n

Locating Beijing University in History

On May 4, 1998, Beijing University commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of its founding.1 Celebrations to mark such occasions are common enough, but this one, attended by some fifty thousand people, was a veritable extravaganza that made it abundantly clear that Beijing University occupies a particularly distinguished place in modern Chinese history. The national media covered the celebration closely, and dozens of new books about the university were rushed into print.2 The Post and Telecommunication Ministry issued a set of commemorative Beida stamps in honor of the event, and during the celebration a celestial body was officially christened the “Beijing University star,” thereby giving Beida its own place within the firmament.3 It is hard to imagine another Chinese university’s centenary being marked in this fashion. Throughout the commemoration, Beida—which was known as the Imperial University, or Jingshi daxuetang, before 1912—was presented as a world-class institution of higher learning.4 This idea was reinforced by the presence at the festivities of dignitaries from among the world’s most prestigious universities—Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Tokyo, Vienna, and many others—and by the opening of a massive new addition to the university library, which makes Beida’s the largest university library in Asia.5 More impressively, Beijing University was presented as a “sacred place of the spirit” (jingshen shengdi), integral to the very soul of the Chinese nation. In myriad ways the commemoration stressed that Beida’s greatness resides in an ineffable spirit 1

2

Introduction

born of its heroic history and that the university is recognized by Chinese the world over as having been at the forefront of China’s quest for dignity and glory in the modern world. An article in China Youth Daily that referred to Beida’s history as “Twentieth-Century China’s Cultural Spirit in a Nutshell” captured this idea succinctly. So too did essays in Taiwan’s China Times, which declared that Beida’s history constitutes a capsule version of modern Chinese history, and one by the dissident liberal political theoretician, Guo Luoji, in the New York–based prodemocracy journal China Spring. Wrote Guo: “No university in the world shares as critical a relationship with its country and people as does Beijing University; it can be said that Beida’s history is China’s national history.”6 The centennial commemoration also revealed that for many people Beijing University serves as a gateway connecting modern China to its ancient past. As the country’s best-known center for “national learning” (guoxue), Beida is viewed as a guardian of the splendor of Chinese civilization. During the centenary several prominent scholars even suggested that the university’s roots reach back to antiquity because Beida possesses status and cultural significance akin to that once held by the ancient Taixue (Imperial College) and its successor, the Guozijian (School for the Sons of the Empire).7 As the lineal descendent of those venerable cultural institutions, their argument goes, Beijing University has come to occupy an analogous space in the national psyche; moreover, like scholars and students at the Taixue and Guozijian, those at Beida have consistently assumed “responsibility for all under heaven.” Given that Beida’s centennial celebration provided so rich an occasion for thinking about the course and meaning of modern Chinese history, the Communist Party could scarcely have failed to participate. Indeed, the party inserted itself into the very heart of the commemoration, simultaneously associating itself with Beida’s glory and managing the way the university’s history and symbolism were celebrated. Of the multifarious activities that comprised the celebration none were more widely reported in the media than the solemn ceremony held on May 4th at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square—which I attended. Virtually all of China’s top leaders were present at that ceremony, which opened with a rendition of the Chinese national anthem jointly performed by the People’s Liberation Army and the Beida Student Army’s philharmonic orchestras. The central moment of the carefully choreographed program was reserved for president and general secretary of the Communist Party Jiang Zemin’s keynote address—televised live to the

Introduction

3

nation on CCTV—setting forth the Communist Party’s official views on Beijing University’s place in Chinese history. Jiang Zemin did not intend to throw new light on Beida’s past. Rather, his speech reflected the Communist Party’s ongoing attempt to impose its own master narrative of modern Chinese history on the public mind. The thrust of Jiang’s message was that Beida is heroic because it has been—and surely will continue to be—home to people who have stood on the “right” side of history, people whose passionate patriotism inspired them to make political and scholarly contributions on behalf of the nation. In making these points Jiang co-opted remarks penned by China’s greatest modern writer, Lu Xun, in 1925: “Beida always fights for the new, it is in the vanguard of the movement for progress.” In Orwellian fashion, Jiang made no mention of Lu Xun’s accompanying assertion that Beijing University “always does battle with the forces of darkness”—a highly ironic omission, given that Lu Xun, perhaps more than any other modern Chinese writer, distrusted what can happen to an author’s voice once it is in print.8 Indeed, Jiang left much out that day. While he celebrated the fact that Beijing University had supplied some of China’s earliest adherents to Marxism and duly noted Beida’s pivotal role in numerous political and cultural movements, his stale clichés had the effect of suggesting that Beida’s record of political activism, while critically important before 1949, was a heroic chapter from the past with little relevance to the present day. Predictably, more recent events that took place in dialogue with that past—those of 1989, of course, included— went unmentioned. The orderly scene at Beida during the festivities seemed to affirm Jiang Zemin’s view that activism was a thing of the past. A handful of students accused their schoolmates of betraying Beida’s heroic tradition by choosing to concentrate on the TOEFL examination, necessary for foreign study in the United States, or on romance to the exclusion of society’s needs, but there were no disruptions of a political nature during the celebration.9 To the best of my knowledge, the only people who challenged the completeness of the Communist Party’s interpretation of Beijing University’s historical role were considerably older than the current generation of students. For example, amid the celebration, old friends who had been labeled rightists during their student days at Beida in the 1950s gathered for honest discussion over private meals.10 Others posed their challenges in print. One example was The Beida Tradition and Modern China: Liberalism’s Early Voices, an anthology of writings in support of democracy and human rights by famous intellectuals associated with

4

Introduction

Beida in the Republican era. Liu Junning, the book’s editor, asserted boldly that the most important task during Beijing University’s centennial anniversary was to “affirm what earlier Beida scholars had concluded, namely, that the Beida tradition is a tradition of liberalism.”11 Another anthology that dissented from the Communist Party’s cleaned-up version of history was Approaching Beida, which was published in reaction to the silences that echoed during the centennial celebration. Qian Liqun, the volume’s editor, wrote in the preface that by constantly cheering Beida’s historical high points while refusing to acknowledge its low points, the organizers of the celebration demonstrated themselves to be “false intellectuals,” willing to misrepresent history by placing political considerations above the truth. Qian presents a more balanced picture, one that emphasizes both Beida’s glorious and its tragic moments, by including memoirs that address the university’s proud chapters alongside others that squarely face dark ones, such as the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution.12 Both anthologies avoid any mention of the events of 1989 (which is probably why the Communist Party allowed them to be published), but each implicitly lines up in sympathy with that year’s protest movement, during which the liberal tradition that Liu and Qian unflinchingly champion was powerfully in evidence. A year before the 1989 movement the enduring salience of Beida’s liberal tradition was captured by the editors of a volume of commemorative essays in honor of the ninetieth anniversary of the university’s founding, entitled The Spirit’s Charm: The mother school has a spirit or, as some say, a “soul,” which forcefully moves students’ hearts and minds. Yes, Beida has a uniquely charming spirit, [grounded in] science, democracy, freedom, the search for the new, and a courageous, determined, and untiring struggle against the forces of the old. That spirit is the splendid result of the accumulated wisdom of several generations. It is Beida’s pride and glory, and accounts for Beida’s unique status and distinguished historical role.13

Beida’s unique importance has been recognized abroad as well. International media coverage of the dramatic events of 1989 showered disproportionate attention on the university made famous by the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Since 1989 foreign journalists have seemed inclined to treat Beida as a bellwether of Chinese intellectual opinion, and the university has also become a common stop on the itineraries of important foreign dignitaries. For example, when President Clinton paid his only state visit to China in June 1998, he delivered his much-publicized speech

Introduction

5

on human rights and democracy before a crowd of students and professors at Beijing University. And in Fall 1999 Time magazine recognized Beijing University’s significance when it listed Beida as one of “the fifty places that define modern China” along with Tiananmen Square, Dazhai, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Pearl River Delta.14 Clearly a resonant and widely recognized symbol, Beijing University bears some resemblance to what Takashi Fujitani, in his study of monarchy and national modernity in Japan, refers to as a mnemonic site. By mnemonic sites, Fujitani means “material vehicles of meaning” that help construct collective memory or “that serve as symbolic markers for commemorations of present national accomplishments and the possibilities of the future.”15 But Fujitani is interested in the integrative function of mnemonic sites, in their ability to engender common feelings of national belonging and loyalty to the status quo in the people who come into contact with them. Although the Chinese Communist Party has sought to cast Beida in that role, the university has never really fit the part. On the contrary, it has become a charged symbol precisely because, consistently over the decades, prominent figures and events associated with Beida have called attention to an unresolved subject of enduring national concern and continuing importance in the construction of a national past: the proper normative relationship between citizens and the Chinese state. Thus, rather than having an integrative function, Beijing University evokes the ongoing tensions that divide, sometimes sharply, the people who constitute the Chinese nation from those who govern them. This is not to say that Beida’s contemporary and historical status does not owe a great deal to the state. The university has been centrally involved in many important historical events precisely because it has been a key arena wherein intellectuals and the state have negotiated their relationship to one another. There is more to the statement “all China looks to Beijing and all Beijing looks to Beida,” which someone at Beida related to me, than self-important boosterism. This “Beida-centric” statement contains an implicit admission that the university’s unique role within Chinese political, cultural, and intellectual life would be unthinkable were it not state-funded and located in the national capital. Seen in this light, Beijing University’s relationship to the Chinese state must be described as symbiotic. Dialogue between intellectuals and the state has taken place in other venues as well, and of course on the nation’s main stage—Tiananmen Square. But I would argue that Beijing University and Tiananmen Square have helped to define one another, and that, for intellectuals, Beida—

6

Introduction

which until 1952 was housed in cramped and run-down buildings just north of the Forbidden City, not far from Tiananmen Square—has been the most important home base. The university has been the symbolic and often literal place from which intellectuals have traveled to the square, as well as the place to which they have returned upon leaving it. To understand this phenomenon it is necessary to examine Beijing University’s past, for it was in the early decades of the twentieth century that Beida first developed the cultural and political significance that it has continued to wield, in various ways, ever since. Although Beida is a widely recognized institution whose early history has been treated as a backdrop in several important studies on radicalism in early-twentiethcentury China, as a subject of discussion in and of itself the university has received scant attention in the English-language historiography.16 The present study seeks to remedy this situation. My choice of subject matter has been governed by my concern with the role intellectuals played in the reshaping of Chinese political culture during the early decades of the twentieth century. In late-imperial China important, state-sanctioned knowledge was upheld by a number of institutions, most notably the civil service examination system. Educated men who wished to achieve fame and status, or to have a meaningful impact on society, had to absorb the intellectual, cultural, and political standards encoded in those institutions. When the Confucian order collapsed in the early twentieth century, however, intellectuals were forced to envision a fundamentally new sociopolitical and cultural order and to find new means by which to exert influence on society. In a recent discussion of contemporary Chinese intellectuals, Gloria Davies captured the predicament that their predecessors faced a century ago as well: “When new discourses are transformed by the emergence of new words and phrases and new styles of speaking and writing, a reorganization of what counts as significant knowledge also takes place. And for new knowledge to be recognized as such, institutional approval is essential.”17 In the tumultuous early decades of the twentieth century, intellectuals were supremely challenged. Not only did they face a profound “crisis of orientational order,” they also had to determine how best to position themselves so that their voices commanded respect—that is, they had to find new ways of institutionalizing their intellectual authority.18 Given that throughout late-imperial Chinese history, “schools . . . played an inevitable part in most efforts, direct or indirect, to retheorize or reimagine some or all aspects of the . . . political system,” it is not surprising that intellectuals concentrated much of their attention on school-

Introduction

7

ing.19 Compared to their contemporaneous involvement in journalism and fiction writing, intellectuals’ focus on schools did not represent a dramatic departure from the past. However, the profound and farreaching nature of the challenge called forth many new types of schools to address the need for practical knowledge and professional training in a wide range of areas. A small number of these schools, while not ignoring practical and professional training, became best known as centers of critical thinking, as places where basic values were subjected to probing and often painful analysis. Such schools were distinctive in that, to a far greater extent than their more utilitarian counterparts, they attracted faculty and students who were deeply concerned with cultural, political, and individual meaning and action in the deepest sense. Over the first half of China’s twentieth century (and, arguably, parts of the second half as well) such institutions were a constant, even if they were always few in number.20 Beijing University is China’s best-known university precisely because, in widely divergent contexts over the last century, it has been a center of humanistic thinking that has cut to the heart of the relationship between history and the present, as well as a nucleus of activism whose goal has been to infuse Chinese society, culture, and politics with considerations of meaning and value. Beijing University’s predecessor, the Imperial University, was born with a distinctive status. When it was founded by imperial decree during the “Hundred Days’ Reform” of 1898 it immediately became known as China’s “highest school” (zuigao xuefu). That appellation invoked the tradition of the ancient Taixue, but the Imperial University was founded to be a decidedly new-style institution; it was envisioned as the capstone of a new nationwide system of schools intended to replace the insufficiently flexible, centuries-old education system based on the civil service examinations. The political significance of the university’s cultural position assured that educational matters there would have broad political repercussions, and that campus debates over cultural issues would reflect struggles for political power. As a key institution in the business of pronouncing upon cultural values, like a microphone, the university amplified the voice of anyone who spoke through it. Ambitious intellectuals seeking official support or the opposite—to wage struggles against the state or one of its policies—were naturally attracted to this new arena, for it served as a platform from which they could broadcast their beliefs to society. It stands to reason, therefore, that politics operated on multiple levels at the “highest school,” and that the university pulsed with intellectual and political energy during the decades immediately before and

8

Introduction

after the 1911 Revolution, when China faced fundamental challenges on all fronts. This study is constructed around four major contentions. The first of these is that Beijing University’s early history provides an ideal space in which to study how humanistic intellectuals worked to reposition themselves during a period of profound change and uncertainty. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the exalted social status of China’s intellectual elite was jeopardized by the collapse of the imperial order, which, when it fell, sundered the unity between politics and culture that had long underwritten that elite’s privileged position. For intellectuals, this was not merely a threat; it also provided an opportunity. But if they hoped to retain their elevated status, they would have to craft a new basis of authority. As I argue in the early chapters, Beijing University was a key locus for that endeavor, a uniquely positioned institution that intellectuals were able to make use of to increase their influence in national affairs. During the transitional decades of the early twentieth century, the opinions of cosmopolitan intellectuals who were well versed in the modern learning of the West and in the Chinese Classics carried tremendous weight. With such people concentrated there, Beida acquired significant power. Given the centrality for intellectuals of the twin goals of achieving modernity and building a strong nation, it is not surprising that cosmopolitan intellectuals’ efforts to maintain their social position were filtered through and articulated in terms of those dominant concerns. Indeed, the crisis atmosphere that obtained in China early in the twentieth century, the widespread sense that the country might not survive the Darwinian age of competing nation-states, presented intellectuals with a critical opportunity. Politicians, too, could turn that atmosphere to their advantage, but the steady disintegration of political stability diminished their standing, thereby creating a vacuum of moral authority that intellectuals were for a time able to fill. Presenting themselves as disinterested men of resolve, new-style intellectuals who had lived and studied in the brave new world of the West possessed a rare combination of characteristics that inspired society’s deepest respect. My second major contention is that the complexity of Beida’s history has been obscured by the historiography on the May Fourth Movement.21 Although not focused on May Fourth per se, this study engages with that historiography. I discuss the May Fourth Movement in the context of, and only insofar as it illuminates, the long-term effort on the part of intellectuals to redefine their role in a rapidly changing society. The

Introduction

9

dominant tendency in scholarship on May Fourth has been very much influenced by the movement’s own understanding and interpretation of the events of May Fourth as a critical turning point, a moment of rupture caused by intellectuals’ belated but teleologically unavoidable recognition that China needed to embrace Western science and democracy if it was to achieve modernity.22 Influenced by revisionist scholarship, I treat the May Fourth Movement as an intensification of a process of dialectical interplay between existing, familiar ways of doing things and novel, unfamiliar ways of doing things. That process unfolded over several decades and its course was anything but inevitable; instead, as I contend in the book’s middle chapters, it was tension-filled and contingent, and, like lived reality, followed an unpredictable trajectory.23 In this study I am less interested in demoting the May Fourth Movement’s historical standing than I am in exposing and exploring the dynamic contradictions at its heart, so as to shed light on the high degree of complexity that defined China’s early embrace of the project of modernity. To be sure, the May Fourth Movement was radical and pointed some people in the direction of social revolution. But as the history of Beijing University reveals, it also had a strong conservative undertow. For at a fundamental level May Fourth reflected intellectuals’ shock over the weak position of their civilization, their nostalgia for the relative certainties of the better-ordered past, and their deeply held belief that it was their responsibility to “awaken” China.24 If they were to play the leading role that they believed was their destiny and burden, intellectuals had not only to preserve their elite social position but also to break free of the legacy of the late imperial state’s patrimonial ideology. In seeking to accomplish those objectives, they combined traditional prerogatives and elitist claims to authority—even iconoclasts needed some firm ground to stand on—with calls for Western-style republican rights. In theory, those rights would apply to all Chinese, but intellectuals in particular could take advantage of them to achieve greater autonomy from the state and to build up their influence within society. My argument that the May Fourth Movement was informed by conservative instincts in addition to the more familiar and far better studied radical ones grows out of a focus on political culture. I use the concept of political culture to refer to the system of meanings, practices, values, and implicit rules that condition the way political power is produced and wielded in society. Here, that system, or culture, is viewed as a fluid entity.25 Unlike the historians Chow Tse-tsung and Vera Schwarcz, I do not approach the May Fourth Movement first and foremost as an intellec-

10

Introduction

tual phenomenon. Instead, influenced by Lynn Hunt, who asserts that the French Revolution was “an explosive interaction between ideas and reality, between intention and circumstance, between collective practices and social context,” I believe it is more fruitful to study Chinese intellectuals in a broad context.26 This is the third major contention around which this study is constructed, and it has led me to move between intellectual, social, and institutional history. Like Weili Ye, who has recently argued that “the conventional approach to studying modern Chinese intellectuals, which often focuses only on their ideas and concepts, fails to capture their multidimensional experience,” I am attentive to how, in concrete and ordinary ways, intellectuals lived.27 I believe knowledge about the quotidian can significantly illuminate the origins and meanings of intellectuals’ formal spoken and written contributions. In order to understand peoples’ worldviews and the sources of their political commitments, it is important to study their expectations, values, tastes, and prejudices. I look for evidence about those things in everything from speech, written texts, and clothing to social networks, ceremonies, and forms of leisure. My fourth major contention is that Beida’s history is most profitably studied in the context of scholarship that is sensitive to spatial variation in China. In their recent works, R. Keith Schoppa and Wen-hsin Yeh show that the May Fourth Movement played out very differently in different geographic locations, be it the Zhejiang village, the provincial capital of Hangzhou, or cosmopolitan Shanghai. In so doing, they underscore the importance of paying close attention to local cultural and social characteristics, and to the way individuals who move between locales often develop new worldviews in the process.28 As the long-standing seat of political and cultural power, Beijing presented unique “local” characteristics. The capital exerted a magnetic force on intellectuals from all over the country who wished to elevate their own visibility and to speak with an authoritative voice. But in the 1920s Beijing’s position grew steadily less powerful until, in 1928, it lost its status as national capital. Beida’s stature was damaged as well. The university and the “old capital” retained a special aura for intellectuals well into the 1930s, but over time their singular importance declined. Increasingly, it was Shanghai, where Chinese modernity burst into full flower, that exerted the greatest influence over urban China’s cultural and intellectual life.29 The vibrancy of May Fourth–era Beijing’s intellectual culture owed a great deal to the relative weakness of the central government during the warlord era, for the political instability of those decades

Introduction

11

opened space in the capital for ongoing political, cultural, and intellectual experimentation. The Nationalist Party’s rise to power shifted the political and cultural center of gravity away from Beijing to the Yangzi Delta, and brought about a strong central government able to impose strict controls on the nation’s intellectual life by, among other means, the “partification of education” (danghua jiaoyu).30 In this new environment Shanghai, with its multiple legal jurisdictions, its concentration of wealth, and the creativity born of its cultural heterogeneity, emerged as the optimal location for intellectuals struggling to preserve a measure of intellectual and political independence during the Nanjing Decade. Though many of Beijing’s cosmopolitan intellectuals considered Shanghai’s cultural style vulgar, they were, especially through their participation in commercial publishing, inexorably drawn into its orbit. The cultural marketplace centered in Shanghai offered a new means by which intellectuals could disseminate their ideas; publishing commercially would translate into higher incomes, and also, so they thought, into increased influence within society. What few of them fully recognized was that participation in the Shanghai cultural marketplace would instead marginalize them, for that marketplace ran according to a value system that reflected middle-class, urban tastes. The growing cultural power of the middle class significantly challenged the rationalistic May Fourth approach to the remaking of Chinese society. Beijing’s cosmopolitan intellectuals could either accommodate themselves to the new cultural standards or, subscribing to an elitist value system rooted in the imperial past, continue to insist on their superior right and duty to determine the future course of the nation, thus isolating themselves still further.

chapter 1

Schools, Politics, and Reform in the Nineteenth Century

Thinking about Beijing University in the context of Chinese political culture challenges us to understand an institution that has always resided on the shifting border between China’s official and unofficial realms. From the time of its founding in 1898, the university has been neither wholly of the “state” nor wholly of “society.” Instead, its porous boundaries have permitted flow back and forth between those two realms; it has been a place where state and society have come together to negotiate their relationship to one another. The university’s role as a meeting ground begins to explain why so many important political movements took place there over the twentieth century. To grasp why Beida has enjoyed such an important position in Chinese political and cultural life, it is necessary to examine the historical forces that came together in its founding at the end of the nineteenth century. As an institutional type, the university represented neither a total break with the past nor merely an updated version of an entity that had existed in China before this time. Instead, it was the by-product of a tension between native models—institutional and intellectual—and more recently encountered foreign ones. In other words, the Imperial University resulted from a dialectical interaction between traditional ways of doing things and novel ways of doing things. Rather than substituting new for old, or foreign for Chinese, this interaction resulted in a unique blending specific to China’s particular historical circumstances. In this

12

Reform in the Nineteenth Century

13

way the coming into being of Beijing University was emblematic of China’s late-nineteenth-century lurch toward modernity.

western learning in late-qing beijing In the late imperial period there was no institution of higher learning in the Chinese capital capable of serving as a center of radical academic innovation or political reform. One may speak about academic innovation and political reform in the same breath here because the two generally went hand in hand at this time. Intellectuals who wished to influence the direction of politics generally articulated their ideas through institutions of learning and in an academic idiom. As Alexander Woodside states, “The educationally conditioned nature of much elite politics constantly threatened to shift political activity to the schools. . . . Schools, therefore, played an inevitable part in most efforts, direct or indirect, to retheorize or reimagine some or all aspects of the late imperial political system.”1 China’s shocking loss to Japan in the war of 1894–95 unleashed a fresh wave of politicking by intellectuals on behalf of a wholly new approach to the classification and teaching of knowledge. Radical reformers had come to assume that the West’s achievement of wealth and power was rooted to a significant degree in its educational institutions, wherein knowledge and learning were organized very differently than in China. Among the reformers’ highest priorities, therefore, was the founding of new schools, including an Imperial University (Jingshi daxuetang). China had long had a “highest school,” or Taixue (Imperial College), in the capital, but the university proposed by the reformers in the 1890s was to be something altogether new, as evidenced by their adoption of the neologism daxue—borrowed from the Japanese daigaku.2 By following Meiji Japan in embracing a Western institutional model, the reformers were not merely attempting to establish a university that they believed would be useful, they were effectively identifying themselves with modernity and with the goal of national wealth and power as well. Western-style universities, especially the model developed in Germany in the nineteenth century, spread throughout much of the world under conditions of imperialism and colonialism and became prime symbols of modernity and power.3 Though for centuries they had been “agencies of the status quo,” by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries European universities had begun to place a premium on research, on the discovery and creation of knowledge that could assist in

14


the construction of strong nation-states. The Meiji government in Japan, as well as states in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere, consciously adopted the European university model as one means of importing modernity.4 The research-focused university became one of the primary institutional bearers of the dream of modernity the world over. Chinese reformers’ ability to link the proposal for a new university with the goals of wealth and power increased the likelihood that conservatives who might otherwise have reservations about the new institution would throw their support behind the project. Widespread support for the university revealed a nearly unanimous opinion that China had to transform its education system if it hoped to withstand the imperialist onslaught. Precisely how it should do this, however, was the subject of much disagreement, for the educational field was one upon which contests for political and cultural power were routinely staged. This was especially so following China’s signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which conservatives and progressives alike recognized as a moment of truth for China and for their respective political and ideological camps. In speaking of education as a politicized field, I mean that access to power was gained by means of one’s educational achievements and also that the dynasty was able to assert control over its servants through its ability to determine what counted as valuable knowledge. Traditionally, this field of power had been structured around the examination system. That system underwent constant transformation over the late imperial period, but by the end of the nineteenth century its viability was very much in doubt, owing to its apparent inability to respond effectively to the problems of the age. Intellectuals began to accept that China could survive only if it adopted some measure of “Western learning” (xixue), an omnibus term used to refer to academic subjects studied in Europe, the United States, and, more recently, Japan. In contrast to “Western learning” stood “Chinese learning” (zhongxue), shorthand for subject matter considered Chinese in origin or deemed sufficiently familiar by this time to qualify as Chinese. By the mid-1890s, when officials first proposed that a modern-style university be established in Beijing, the debate over whether and how to adopt Western learning had been ongoing for several decades. It can be traced back at least to the early 1860s, when patriotic intellectuals stunned by the foreign invasion of Beijing began to think seriously about reform. In particular, scholars adhering to the resurgent statecraft (jingshi) tradition attributed China’s failures in the face of imperialism to its ignorance of the outside world and called for serious study of Western


15

learning. One of the best-known of these individuals, Feng Guifen, had no intention of replacing Chinese with Western learning, but like others associated with the foreign affairs (yangwu) faction, he recognized that China had to adopt Western military methods in order to protect itself from the Westerners. Feng, who was in the employ of Li Hongzhang, the leading official associated with the emerging Self-strengthening Movement, desperately hoped that the Qing court would recognize the critical importance of training talented men in Western learning and so dedicate itself to that task in a purposeful manner.5 In 1862, soon after Feng made his views known, the new General Office for Managing Affairs of the Various Countries (Zongli yamen) founded the Tongwen Guan (College of Foreign Languages) in Beijing to train specialists in foreign languages for service in China’s diplomatic corps.6 Similar schools were soon opened in Shanghai and Guangzhou, demonstrating that the selfstrengtheners had gained influence at court. Predictably, the Tongwen Guan emerged as a site of struggle between supporters of the yangwu faction and cultural conservatives. That the Tongwen Guan became the focal point of a contentious ideological battle in the late 1860s is not because it rapidly emerged as a dynamic force politically or culturally. To the contrary: in its earliest years the institution had a difficult time even attracting students. Only a minuscule number of Chinese wished to see their sons study anything other than the orthodox Neo-Confucian curriculum, mastery of which was required if one was to be successful on the civil service examinations. As Knight Biggerstaff writes: “It was said that the families of bannermen called to the Peking school regarded studying there such a disgrace that they resisted it with every available means and that only boys who were so stupid or so lazy that they could make no progress in the banner schools or whose families were without political influence of any kind actually enrolled.”7 All the same, the Tongwen Guan’s very existence posed a threat to cultural conservatives. In 1866 a debate erupted between opponents of the school led by Mongol Grand Secretary Woren, “the most important Neo-Confucian scholar of his time,” and more progressive forces within the Zongli yamen led by Prince Gong.8 The debate erupted over a Zongli yamen proposal that foreigners be hired to teach geography, political economy, mechanics, chemistry, physics, international law, anatomy, and biology—all under the heading “astronomy and mathematics,” presumably because European astronomy and mathematics had been accepted in China several centuries earlier and therefore were not perceived to be distastefully foreign.9 The Tongwen Guan’s supporters neither came right

16


out and stated nor themselves believed that the addition of courses on Western subjects should be the first step toward the elimination of orthodox Song Learning. But as Kwang-Ching Liu states, the move to hire foreigners to teach Western subjects was truly “radical,” since the “broader goal was . . . nothing less than recognition by the throne and by such citadels of orthodoxy as the Hanlin Academy of the legitimacy of Western learning.”10 What most angered opponents of expanded foreign influence in 1867 was the argument that in order to raise the caliber of the Tongwen Guan’s students, jinshi degree holders and even Hanlin Academy members should be recruited to study there. Woren regarded the idea of teaching foreign subjects to China’s best and brightest positively loathsome. “If these brilliant . . . scholars . . . have to change from their regular course of study to follow the barbarians, then the correct spirit will not be developed, and accordingly the evil spirit will become stronger.”11 But the conservatives were unable to derail the curricular reorganization, and to mollify Woren, the court appointed him rector of the Guozijian— the successor to the ancient Taixue. Located adjacent to the Temple of Confucius, its courtyard packed with tablets and stele enshrining government-approved texts, the Guozijian was inextricably identified with imperial orthodoxy.12 Nevertheless, Woren’s appointment brought him little real power, for by this time the Guozijian had lost most of its former vitality. The Hanlin Academy, not the Guozijian, was the government institution to which the ambitious aspired. More than any other late imperial institution, the Hanlin Academy wielded a combination of political and cultural power.13 However, Woren and his allies’ attacks on the Tongwen Guan, made public by the throne, did force candidates who applied for admission to defend themselves against charges that they were pro-Western.14 The school was effectively tarred as an anti-Chinese bastion, and the prospect of its recruiting students from among the children of officials was thereby lost for several decades. These circumstances made it impossible for the Tongwen Guan’s head, the American W. A. P. Martin, to realize his goal of using the school to transform China’s educational system by, in his words, “engrafting science on the civil service examinations.”15 From the time he became chief instructor (zong jiaoxi) until he resigned in 1895, Martin presided over an environment rife with ideological and bureaucratic disagreements. He later contended that the Tongwen Guan had made real contributions to China’s modernization effort, but the radical reformers who came on the scene in 1895 viewed the school and


17

its sibling institutions in the provinces as indisputable failures. In 1896 Chen Qizhang, an associate of Kang Youwei, stated: “In the West [the Tongwen Guan] would not qualify as a university. . . . The course levels are not divided and high quality and crude effort are not distinguished; no wonder it is so difficult to prevent foreigners from laughing behind our backs!”16

efforts at innovation and revitalization outside the capital What modest success the Tongwen Guan did enjoy had much to do with the fact that, starting in the late 1860s, it was granted permission to begin recruiting students from the foreign language colleges in Shanghai and Guangzhou. Few of those students came from literati families (only in the 1890s did that begin to happen), but they nevertheless tended to be better prepared than students recruited from north China.17 As compared to Beijing, life in Shanghai and Guangzhou was more conducive to learning about the outside world—even if literati tended to view those cities, Shanghai in particular, as dangerous locales full of profit-seekers, prostitutes, charlatans, and cheats, where men from good families were likely to be led astray.18 Better-prepared students notwithstanding, Western learning-oriented government schools had only a minimal impact on intellectual life as long as social success still required mastery of the Confucian curriculum. Indeed, to the extent that Western learning did make inroads in the late nineteenth century, it was among the children of commoners who attended Christian missionary schools. By 1878 roughly fifteen thousand students were enrolled in some nine hundred missionary schools (most of them elementary or secondary) nationwide. By 1895 there were over twenty-one thousand students enrolled in more than a thousand missionary schools, the highest concentration being in Jiangnan.19 On the other hand, those who believed that intellectual revitalization depended on the reform of existing educational institutions concentrated on the overhaul of shuyuan, or academies, which provided the bulk of the training for civil service examination candidates. As an institutional type, the shuyuan had a complicated recent history of their own, given that they had been centers of opposition in the late-Ming and “nerve centers of the resistance during the Manchu invasion of the seventeenth century.”20 In the sixteenth century, in conjunction with the spread of Wang Yangming’s teachings, the number of academies rose dramatically; more

18


than ever, they were associated with a spirit of anti-establishment reformism and moral awakening, which prompted John Meskill to refer to them as “cells of reform.”21 In addition, shuyuan served as centers of loyalist resistance during the Manchu conquest of Ming China.22 Only in 1733 did the Qing feel secure enough in its power to authorize the opening of new academies in provincial capitals. Later, when the court lifted its ban on them, academies proliferated rapidly, so that some two thousand existed, at various times, over the remainder of the Manchu period. Academies with the best reputations generally owed their renown to the fact that their graduates performed well on the civil service examinations. Shuyuan emphasis on examination preparedness was a direct outgrowth of the remarkable extent to which success on the examinations enabled elite social and political status in the late imperial period.23 Even if students were highly careerist, the requirement that they master the Neo-Confucian curriculum to succeed on the examinations assured that they would internalize at least the letter, if not the spirit, of that curriculum’s “civilizing” norms as they pursued their own benefit. In this way, the examination system produced loyal officials for the state while it enabled students to secure positions within the empire’s elite, thereby resulting in an upper social tier that reproduced the cultural and social values upon which the social order rested.24 Nevertheless, it is also important to note that Qing shuyuan were not “spiritless parrot houses of Chu Hsi thought.” To emphasize this point, Alexander Woodside draws a comparison with England at roughly the same time: No doubt Ch’ing academies did work to defend such ideologically indispensable things as the Neo-Confucian definition of the proper performance of the Five Relations . . . as well as the political attitudes that Chu Hsi himself had associated with this social code. . . . But beyond the vindication of such central social and political ideals, the academies may have been freer to innovate than we think. It would obviously be wrong to deduce that there was little freedom or variety of thought in Henry VIII’s Cambridge because Henry VIII told Cambridge university students not only which authors they must study . . . but also which authors they must shun.25

Under the Qing, curriculum was standardized to uphold intellectual orthodoxy, but the state’s primary contact with students was at the examination stage. Students were usually free to study at their own pace and to pursue interests outside the academy. The imperial center did not provide much funding for the academies, and it ordinarily had little direct control over the appointment of academy heads, which were generally


19

selected on the basis of personal friendships and family connections. This is not to say that Beijing adopted a wholly laissez-faire attitude; in fact, the Qing court appointed “studies officials” (xueguan) to oversee the maintenance of intellectual orthodoxy in the academies.26 What must be kept in mind, however, is that there was always tension in the system, that shuyuan were many and always changing; at any given moment, one or more of them was testing the limits of official standards. In the post-Taiping era Beijing lacked financial resources to expand local government; control over schools and virtually all other local affairs therefore devolved gradually into the hands of local gentry.27 The Qing Court tolerated this trend so long as local initiative helped restore confidence in and strength to the dynasty. And, indeed, to the extent that it was successful, the Tongzhi Restoration owed much to academies, many of which were revitalized by gentry anxious to rebuild society after the catastrophic mid-century rebellions. The local elite was in turn encouraged in this endeavor by officials in the capital who sought to inculcate a sense of renewal among the empire’s intellectuals. One such official was Grand Secretary Woren, which indicates that among other things Court conservatives viewed shuyuan as a potential bulwark against contaminating ideas from the West.28 Yet Barry Keenan reminds us that there was no necessary “contradiction between promoting orthodox Song Neo-Confucianism and emphasizing practicality,” or between educating students in morality and preparing them for the civil service examinations. One could favor high moral and ethical standards and simultaneously support statecraft ideas that tended to lead scholars to adopt a more open mind to Western learning. For example, in reestablishing the Zhongshan Academy (in Jiangsu) after the Taiping Rebellion, Zeng Guofan’s goal was to train students in Neo-Confucian ethics and in practical learning. Zeng believed that rigorous self-cultivation would bring about greater understanding for practical learning. He ordered the academy to train students for the civil service examinations so they could gain government office and thereby put their seriousness of purpose and practical know-how to work for the Qing dynasty.29 Zhang Zhidong, too, aided the restoration by founding academies. His concern to train capable and upstanding “men of talent” for the state was similar to Zeng Guofan’s. Zhang saw no contradiction between moral cultivation and practical knowledge, so long as the latter was gained through rigorous study that would prevent students from misunderstanding the meanings of Western ideas. Zhang Zhidong strove to

20


blend the two by promoting a syncretic classical curriculum. He also worked assiduously to root out corruption from the examination system, which effort led him to develop a critical attitude toward the careerist motives that drove so many of the empire’s students. Zhang removed training for the “eight-legged essay” from the curriculum at the academies with which he was associated—a bold statement in the early 1870s.30 In short, the political and intellectual crisis created by the recently suppressed Taiping Rebellion and continuing Western aggression led to a wide variety of higher educational initiatives in the capital, in treaty ports, and in provincial capitals during the final third of the nineteenth century. These initiatives came from all points on the politico-ideological spectrum. On the one hand, this indicates a consensus that ideas and how they were taught would have a direct bearing on the future viability of China’s much-battered civilization. On the other hand, it calls attention to the fact that many supporters of educational modernization were also champions of China’s intellectual traditions. The educational arena was of the utmost interest to those who sought to wield power over and rebuild society; what intellectuals learned, how they were taught, and by whom, mattered a great deal. So much did it matter that cosmopolitan officials like Zeng Guofan and Zhang Zhidong were unwilling to surrender control over the most important shuyuan to local gentry. These would have to be directed by men like themselves, who thought in empirewide, rather than in the increasingly common provincial, terms. Even as officials like Zeng and Zhang sought to harness the gentry’s energy for the good of the empire, however, they contributed to the creation of an educationally polycentric society.31 Moreover, officials in Beijing who hoped for strong central government support for reform (new-style or not) recognized that there was a “divorce between the political center and educational creativity in late imperial China.”32 Robert Hart, of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, no doubt spoke for many when he quipped in 1873 that “Peking is the last place in China to select for the introduction of novelties, and the Central Government is the last authority to ask for support of any kind: local growth—and that the farther from Peking the better—is the only process of development recognized or to be relied on in this country.”33

renewed demands that the center lead the way More than any other factor, the steady imperialist encroachment on China in the 1880s and 1890s underscored the need for a strong, effec-


21

tive central government. The Sino-French War of 1883–84 contributed to the emergence of modern Chinese nationalism, and China’s defeat led to vociferous criticism of Qing leadership. Li Hongzhang was the primary target for officials associated with the fervently nationalistic Qingliu—Pure Talk group—which adhered to a moralistic rhetorical style known as qingyi (“voices of remonstrance”).34 Qingliu partisans accused Li Hongzhang of pursuing an ignominious policy of appeasement in foreign affairs and, being highly culturalistic, also attacked him for advocating the adoption of foreign technology.35 They claimed that their attacks on him and his protégés were “pure,” that they were made solely with the best interests of the empire in mind. The crisis atmosphere that resulted from China’s unthinkable defeat by Japan in the mid-1890s led intellectuals to speak in cataclysmic terms, and men with conservative instincts suddenly began offering radical policy recommendations. Qingliu types championed an even higher degree of Westernization than the yangwu faction had promoted a decade earlier, thus trading places with their political opponents on that issue. For instance, though Zhang Zhidong remained a conservative moderate, his support for fundamental institutional change—which had begun to grow after the Sino-French War— increased further in the mid-1890s, revealing how rapidly the moderate position was shifting in that direction during these decades. The curricula at the academies Zhang founded in the 1860s and 1870s focused exclusively on Chinese subjects, but at the Self-strengthening School (Ziqiang xuetang) and the School for Gathering Talent (Chucai xuetang), established in 1893 and 1896, respectively, Western subjects were the focus.36 Many who urged rapid change were sharp critics of the Qing state’s weakness. They yearned for a Peter the Great–type leader who would entirely reshape society from the capital, thereby advancing China to a higher stage of historical development.37 Radical reform proposals addressed a wide range of issues and were most famously enumerated in the “Ten Thousand Word Memorial” drafted by Kang Youwei and signed by 1,200 examination candidates after news of the Treaty of Shimonoseki reached Beijing in April 1895. Kang’s memorial, written in the moralistic qingyi tone typical of New Text heroic-scholar types, called on the court to entirely overhaul Chinese society in much the same manner as the Meiji leaders had undertaken in Japan. The ambitious agenda set forth in the “Ten Thousand Word Memorial” represented a strong vote of no confidence in Li Hongzhang’s yangwu group, which was viewed as

22


overly cautious by the newly ascendant weixin, or fundamental reform, group headed by Kang Youwei. The list of institutions the weixin group wished to see overhauled was a long one, but in its members’ minds nothing took precedence over the need to change the way Chinese scholars acquired knowledge. Starting with the Qiang xuehui, or Society for the Study of Self-strengthening, founded in the capital in 1895 by Kang Youwei and like-minded scholars, intellectuals across the country began to form xuehui, or “study societies.” Members of these xuehui had many different understandings about what they were trying to achieve, but to a person they saw themselves as “scholars of resolve” (zhishi) who were first and foremost concerned to save China.38 The study societies were often political in nature, as Liang Qichao later attested: At the time society viewed new learning as an enemy, so the moment one spoke of opening schools they were seen as a rebel. . . . Because we could not openly found a formal school we organized a Qiang xuehui . . . to work for political reform. The Qiang xuehui was part school and part political party in nature . . . [and it] became increasingly influential.39

By referring to their groups as study societies the weixin reformers hoped to inoculate themselves against the charge that they were violating the Qing dynasty’s long-standing ban on the formation of factions. Nevertheless, shortly after it opened, the Qiang xuehui ran into trouble. As more radical figures gained influence within the study society, the Empress Dowager and her supporters crushed it on the grounds that it was operating like a “private clique” (sili huidang).40 Soon thereafter, Li Hongzhang, who had been denied admission into the Qiang xuehui, recommended that the society’s library be maintained and that an Official Book Depot (Guanshu ju) be established to house it.41 The emperor assented, and Sun Jia’nai, the president of the Board of Works and a member of the Qiang xuehui, was named guanli dachen, or superintendent, of the new Official Book Depot. Along with Weng Tonghe, a leading backer of the Emperor, Sun had formerly served as a tutor to the Guangxu Emperor (from 1878 until 1887) and was closely identified with the so-called Emperor’s Party.42 At the start of the Guangxu reign, both men incurred the wrath of Manchu conservatives when they enthusiastically supported a proposal that the seventeenthcentury thinkers and Ming loyalists Huang Zongxi and Gu Yanwu be enshrined as worthies at the Confucian Temple. As a political moderate,


23

who skillfully kept his distance from the radicals, however, Sun Jia’nai managed to maintain good relations with the Empress Dowager.43 Although the weixin group was accused of “interfering” in politics, its ultimate purpose had never been to question the Qing court’s right to rule. As Philip Kuhn states, for China’s leading reformist thinkers of the nineteenth century there was no contradiction between seeking a greater political voice for themselves and the desire to strengthen the state’s exercise of its authoritarian power.44 Reformers like Kang and Liang attempted to influence the imperial government, to “interfere” in politics, precisely because they took Beijing’s preeminent position so much for granted. Their dissatisfaction with the existing educational system was mostly pragmatic—they were persuaded that the examination system failed to deliver real talent into the government’s hands. In the 1890s, then, the radical reformers were statists. They believed they could change the country for the better by working through the imperial center—even though the force of their campaign for greater influence proved in the long term to be corrosive of the state’s monopoly on power.45

the campaign to establish the imperial university As China’s domestic and diplomatic predicament worsened, intellectuals, conservative and progressive alike, instinctively turned to schools as a primary instrument of social and political revitalization. Often, those who viewed better schools as a key part of the answer to China’s problems subscribed to the idea that in the ancient past China’s school system had reached a state of perfection. Woodside discusses this habit of mind in terms of “a myth of a preimperial golden age of education in China,” and argues that those who were enthralled by that myth tended to yearn for a more “centrally focused kind of public education.” The myth’s eighteenth- and nineteenth-century adherents found comfort in its ideas because, at a time when nouveau riches were penetrating the upper tier of society and degrees were increasingly available for purchase, it described an idealized world in which “true” men of learning possessed the highest social status.46 Thinkers who lived during the Ming–Qing transition, such as Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi, laid the groundwork for the resurgence of this myth. Gu’s and especially Huang’s ideas held great currency among the radical reformers of the 1890s. For example, Liang Qichao called Huang Zongxi’s Mingyi daifang lu (A Plan For the Prince) “a powerful

24


tonic for students in the 1890s,” and stated: “My own political activities can be said to have been influenced very early and very deeply by this book.” Liang and Tan Sitong printed several tens of thousands of abridged copies of Huang’s book and circulated them secretly as a means of spreading democratic ideas.47 There was in all this a mixture of progressivism and conservatism, the latter grounded in bedrock elitism. Reformers who advocated constitutional monarchy were not seeking to spread power to the uneducated masses but rather to strengthen the position of men like themselves within society, and of China within a world full of predatory nations. Tan Sitong certainly had such a view in mind in 1898 when he called on every province to found a central academy where great affairs of state could be discussed. In Tan’s words, these academies “would not be called assemblies but they would in fact be assemblies.”48 In this way, too, a figure like Huang Zongxi, who sought to enlarge the authority of Confucian scholars as a means of counterbalancing the despotic power of the emperor, had great appeal to the reformers. For Huang, political reform entailed a reworking of the educational system, for in classical times, he argued, “schools were centers of all important community and state activities” and had “a major role too . . . in debating public questions and advising the prince.”49 Moral order could be achieved only by returning power to the schools. Huang argued that an expanded public school system would make education available to a larger portion of society, and that supervisors at each level of the school system should be independent of control from above. He also called for a revitalized Imperial College (Taixue) at the top of this reformed school system. As though to call attention to the feebleness of the present-day Guozijian as a force for moral renewal, Huang Zongxi spoke of the Taixue’s heroic moments in order to identify a tradition he believed it was critical to reclaim. During the Eastern Han, Huang wrote, “30,000 scholars at the Imperial College engaged in outspoken discussion of important issues without fear of those in power, and the highest officials were anxious to avoid their censure.”50 He continued: “During the Northern Song (960–1127) students knelt at the palace gate and ‘beat the drum,’ pleading for the reinstatement of Li Kang. In only these [two instances] have the schools come close to the lingering spirit of the Three Dynasties.” Huang asserted that the libationer (rector) of the revived Imperial College should be chosen from among the most upright and talented scholars in the realm, and that, in terms of his power, he should be “equal in importance to the prime minister.” Also, beginning


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at age fifteen, the sons of the emperor should attend the Imperial College to take instruction about the true conditions in the empire. Even after the prince became emperor, Huang believed, he should remain a student: “On the first day of each month the Son of Heaven should visit the Imperial College, attended by the prime minister, six ministers, and censors. The libationer should face south and conduct the discussion, while the Son of Heaven too sits among the ranks of students.” At this moment, “if there is anything wrong with the administration of the country, the libationer should speak without reserve.”51 Insofar as the late-Qing reformers took for granted that intellectuals were society’s natural leaders, it is possible to trace a line of a conscious self-identification backward from reformers of the 1890s to those of the seventeenth century, and from there to the Imperial College activists of the Song and Han. Each link in this chain was forged by men who judged themselves to be in an analogous position, politically, to that faced by earlier intellectuals—the Donglin partisans, the Song Imperial College students, and so on. Undoubtedly, they found it strategically useful and psychologically empowering to borrow from the vocabulary of righteous protest evolved by those whom they regarded as their predecessors. That the weixin reformers called for a thoroughly revamped educational system capped by a revitalized “highest school” in the imperial capital was therefore altogether fitting. Japan’s rapid development further convinced China’s reformers that national strength and educational reform went hand in hand.52 Japanese leaders had recently established Tokyo Imperial University on the Western model, and those in China who wished to see the Qing dynasty follow the Meiji example likewise called on their government to found such a university. Tokyo Imperial University was a decidedly new-style institution; it focused on Western subjects and, especially in the early going (it was founded in the 1870s), most faculty were foreigners who taught in their native languages.53 The Japanese Imperial University example is also likely to have reinforced the Chinese reformers in their belief that “scholars of resolve” were the rightful leaders of society. Tokyo Imperial University was the highest school in the state-sponsored educational pyramid and at the outset had jurisdiction over elementary and middle schools in the provinces. By the mid-1880s it had become clearly marked as a tool of the state and began to graduate a remarkably large number of men who later went on to become political and administrative leaders. Although clearly modeled on foreign institutions, and, in terms of its connection to the state, on the French and Prussian examples in partic-

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ular, Tokyo University was also based on the very Confucian idea that leadership in society is the province of the few who are superior in intellect and virtue.54 Rather than seeking to build on the foundations of the existing Guozijian, those who campaigned for a revitalized “highest school” in Beijing believed it was necessary to establish an altogether new institution. In part, this was because the Guozijian had by then fallen into disrepute. Early in the Ming dynasty the college’s students were still selected from categories in keeping with the notion of aristocratic “sons of the state,” but as time passed commoner students (minsheng) had infiltrated the institution. Because commoners were able to buy their way into the college, Woodside writes, “a dignity-sensitive majority of the regional degree-holders began to avoid studying at a school whose student body had become so heterogeneous.” Moreover, though the Qing continued to make a show of honoring the college (in the 1790s, for example, nearly two hundred stone tablets bearing the standardized, canonical version of the Thirteen Classics authorized by the Qianlong emperor were erected on its grounds), it proved a poor patron of the Guozijian. Unlike monarchs in Europe, where Louis XIV lavished money on the French Academy of Science and Frederick the Great did the same for the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters, Qing leaders feared the potential power of intellectuals concentrated in the capital. They preferred to allow provincial academies to develop and produce talent, and then to import that talent to the capital in a careful and controlled manner.55 Early in the twentieth century W. A. P. Martin observed of the Guozijian that “this great school for the ‘Sons of the Empire’ ” has “degenerated into a mere appendage of the civil-service competitive examinations, on which it hangs as a dead weight, corrupting and debasing itself instead of advancing the standard of national education.” Martin noted that the “buildings have fallen to ruin” and that there was little chance that the one-time “ornament to the Empire” could be “renovated, remodelled and adapted to the altered circumstances of the age.”56 It was in fact this sense of “the altered circumstances of the age,” and not merely the decayed state of the centuries-old Guozijian, which led the reformers to strike out in a decidedly novel direction by seeking to follow Meiji Japan in embracing the Western university model. To the extent that they were convincing in thus representing their purposes the reformers could hope to make themselves acceptable to many who were far more conservative than they, for the goal of a wealthy and powerful China was shared by people of every political persuasion.


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Officials who memorialized the throne in support of the campaign to found a new university found it necessary to explain why, given that China already had over a dozen schools devoted to Western learning, it was necessary to found a new institution. Naturally, they pointed to the poor performance of the modern government schools. For example, Li Duanfen, in his famous “Memorial Requesting the Expansion of Schools” of June 1896—which is believed to have been ghostwritten by his relation-through-marriage, Liang Qichao—stated that the existing government schools were wholly inadequate to the challenges facing China. In their place, Li called for a new, nationwide system of schools capped by a university in the capital.57 This Jingshi daxuetang was to be attended by men under thirty years of age who were recommended by local governments (gongsheng) or already admitted to the Guozijian, and officials in the capital who so desired would be allowed to sit in on classes as well. In addition, the university was to be in charge of a translation bureau to carry on the work being done at the Tongwen Guan.58

sun jia’nai’s vision Li Duanfen’s memorial impressed the Guangxu emperor, who forwarded it to the Zongli yamen, which in turn sent the matter on to the newly opened Official Book Depot, ordering Sun Jia’nai to come up with a plan for implementation.59 Like Li Duanfen, Sun argued that existing schools devoted to Western learning were not up to the present task. “The Fuzhou Navy School, the Jiangnan Arsenal and the Jiangnan Naval Officers and Weapons Schools are all limited to the teaching of a single skill each; they have had little success at this and fail to [demonstrate an] understanding of the overall situation (bu ming dati).”60 Significantly, Sun implied that educational reform itself required a reorganization of China’s approach to systems of knowledge. It was necessary to unite the various Western disciplines within a single intellectual framework rather than dividing them off from one another into hermetically isolated intellectual subspaces. To lead this effort, Sun claimed, a new university had to be founded, one whose intellectual reach subsumed the scattered, existing Western-learning schools. Through its offerings, this new school was also to assert in bold terms that Western learning involved the study of government, law, history, and so forth, in addition to practical techniques. Insofar as attitudes toward Western learning were concerned, therefore, at least two substantial shifts in Chinese intellectual life are reflected

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in the campaign to establish an Imperial University. First, the idea of the university rested on the assumptions that Western learning included essential knowledge in addition to practical, and that practical techniques could be achieved only through mastery of the fundamental principles that underlay Western learning. Equally important, those who championed the Imperial University sought to blend this expanded understanding of Western learning with Chinese learning, which they continued to refer to as essential learning. Pointing to the Japanese case as a negative example, Sun Jia’nai stated in 1896: “For five thousand years the spirit of the sages has been continued in China . . . [we] absolutely must not do as the Japanese have done, dispensing with their own learning in favor of Western learning.”61 Sun and other backers of the university now viewed Western learning as having something akin to a ti of its own, but it was one that could fit side by side with an even more essential Chinese ti, so as to form a new whole. In this sense, the campaign to found the university recorded an intellectual shift toward an expanded sense of the totality and unity of knowledge. The Jingshi daxuetang was to be a new kind of institution that encompassed all learning—Chinese and Western, and therefore the entire universe—within its walls, and in so doing also organized and controlled it. While conceived at a time of crisis, the university plan nevertheless bespoke tremendous intellectual ambition, a belief in possibility fueled by a sense of necessity. Accordingly, those who lobbied for the Imperial University betrayed a curious mix of self-confidence and insecurity, or so I detect in their vision of the university as a monument that would, simultaneously, enshrine Chinese learning within the new galaxy of knowledge, and announce to the world that China had joined the modern world. Though the intellectuals who lobbied for the new university decried the corrupt culture of official Beijing, they nevertheless believed it important that the Jingshi daxuetang be a capital undertaking. This reflected their commitment to the idea of a politically and culturally centralized dynastic state and their belief that the Qing Court could be persuaded to cease divorcing educational creativity from the political center. The reformers pointed out that the Western powers and Japan had universities in their capital cities and that China would send an important message to the world regarding its openness to new ideas if it followed suit. The American missionary Gilbert Reid, who had close ties to Chinese reformers, was direct on this point: “By establishing a university in the capital it will be possible to expand the people’s knowledge,


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and honor the imperial system, and also to raise the country’s reputation. If a comprehensive school is founded,” Reid wrote, “. . . talent will issue forth every generation, the country will become steadily stronger, and western countries will admire, respect and love [China].”62 Sun Jia’nai also stressed the importance of locating the university in the center of Beijing, where it could serve as a visible symbol of China’s cultural accomplishment.63 Representatives from Western embassies will come to view the place when they learn that China is establishing a new school; if it is built in a poor manner it will certainly earn their ridicule and disdain. It is important to select a location in the center of the capital, a vast and open space, or to purchase private residences, in order to construct the university in a lofty manner.64

After he sketched this image, Sun turned to the question of curriculum. In the broad guidelines he proposed for the Jingshi daxuetang in 1896, Sun anticipated the classic formulation of the ti-yong (essence—practical use) dualism as laid out by Zhang Zhidong in his 1898 Quanxue pian (Exhortation to Learning). “In establishing a university in the Chinese capital, Chinese learning must be taken as the base, and Western learning as a supplement. Chinese learning should be the essence,” Sun wrote, “and Western learning should be treated as useful (zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong). Chinese learning should guide [our] embrace of Western learning. Western learning cannot be permitted to override Chinese learning. Where Chinese learning is deficient, Western learning can be used to complete it.”65 Undoubtedly, Sun calculated that this formulation would offer political protection against attacks from conservatives opposed to any hint that the supremacy of Chinese learning was being drawn into question. Nevertheless, the curriculum he proposed makes clear to what extent foreign academic subjects had already been accepted, at least in a formalistic sense, into the mental universe of moderate Chinese intellectuals by the late nineteenth century. Sun called for the university to be divided into ten departments, the majority of which clearly belonged to what conservatives referred to as Western learning. While there would be a department devoted to the study of Confucian socio-ethics (daoxue), every other department was to be partially or wholly focused on the study of the West, on Western learning, or on a discipline already known in China but not previously taught in this type of institutional setting. A list of planned departments makes this clear: astronomy

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(tianxue), with mathematics attached; geology (dixue), with mining attached; government (zhengxue), which was to include the study of Western government and law; literature (wenxue), which was to involve the study of both Chinese and Western languages; military science (wuxue), including naval science; agricultural science (nongxue); engineering (gongxue), which would include the study of manufactures and physics (gezhi); commerce (shangxue), wherein steamboats, railroads, and the telegraph would be among the technologies studied; and medicine (yixue), which would cover both the herbal and chemical varieties.66 In spite of the overwhelming dominance of Western learning in this curriculum, Sun maintained that the “essential” (ti) place of Chinese learning could be guaranteed in several ways. First, of the four chief instructors he proposed to run the institution, two were to be respected Chinese scholars with some knowledge of Western learning, and two were to be Westerners familiar with Chinese learning and also capable of speaking and reading Chinese. As for students, they were to be drawn from among men who already possessed knowledge of both Chinese and Western learning. Initially at least, students were to be recruited from the Tongwen Guan and the other modern government schools. Sun stipulated that priority should be given to those who were strong in Chinese learning and weak in Western learning. Within both the professorial and student ranks, therefore, Chinese learning was to be in a strong position vis-à-vis the new learning; at both levels, fluency in the former was required while fluency in the latter was desirable but not required. In Sun Jia’nai’s plan it was understood that the university would be oriented toward the production of talent for official use, that its students would go to work for the government upon graduation. The graduates were to become men of real stature and responsibility; their talents were not to be wasted. In other words, at a time when more radical reformers were indicating that they believed the examination system should be abolished outright, to be replaced by a modern, Western-style system of schools, Sun was seeking to devise a system in which the civil service examination and the modern university could coexist. The emperor backed Sun Jia’nai’s proposal in 1896, but its implementation was delayed by highly placed conservatives in the Inner Court, such as Prince Yi and the Manchu Grand Councilor Gangyi. To stall a project they opposed on ideological grounds, these figures used the argument that the university would exact too great a financial cost.67 Frustrated by the slow pace of change in Beijing, ardent supporters of educational reform focused their energies elsewhere—Tan Sitong, Liang


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Qichao, and others, founded the Shiwu xuetang in Hunan in 1897— while keeping an eye out for further opportunities in the capital. Meanwhile, the campaign on behalf of the Jingshi daxuetang continued. For example, in 1897, Yao Wendong, who had spent six years in Tokyo during the 1880s, wrote, “In the capital cities of all Asian and Western countries there are universities where talented people are gathered together, on which twenty to thirty thousand [taels?] are expended annually.” Yao continued, “Today China cannot establish schools at the local level all at once, but if a university is first established in the capital it will establish a precedent to be followed elsewhere.”68 In early 1898 momentum for reform gathered. On June 11, when the Guangxu emperor proceeded to the Gate of Heavenly Peace to launch what would come to be known as the “Hundred Days’ Reform,” he spoke about the importance of the Jingshi daxuetang in no uncertain terms: From this moment all ministers high and low, from princes to the various gentlemen, must exert themselves to the utmost, seeking in a heroic manner to seize the essential meaning of the sages’ righteous teachings, and to master the Western learning relevant to current affairs. . . . The Imperial University will be the model for the provinces to emulate and should be opened immediately.69

The emperor and his advisors considered the university a critically important part of the overall reform process. In drafting the June 11 edict for the emperor, Grand Councilor Weng Tonghe took pains to reassure conservatives by stressing that the education offered at the Jingshi daxuetang was to be rooted in the “sage’s righteous principles.” Reassured, Empress Dowager Cixi subsequently lent her support to the plan. Afterward, China experienced an explosion of interest in new-style learning. Whereas 14 Western-learning schools were established during the first five months of 1898, 106 were founded during the summer of reform. Thereafter, the increase in the number of new-style schools was rapid and steady, and interest in missionary schools likewise grew.70

the “wuxu university”: liang qichao’s vision In early July 1898—the wuxu year—the Zongli yamen memorialized the throne with a statement of its four top priorities for the new university. First, the Jingshi daxuetang should be amply funded; second, official property should be set aside for use as a campus; third, the throne should

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appoint a high official to oversee the university; and fourth, special care must be given to the selection of a chief instructor for the institution.71 Accompanying the memorial was a draft set of provisional university regulations (daxuetang zhangcheng), hastily prepared by Liang Qichao. Liang’s regulations emphasized the need for intellectual breadth and inclusiveness. “The biggest problem in China is that those who subscribe to Chinese learning do not utter a word about Western learning, while those devoted to Western learning completely ignore Chinese learning.” If Chinese learning and Western learning are not combined, Liang wrote, “their followers will be as irreconcilable as water and fire.” What concerned him most was that a continued intellectual standoff between those who favored Chinese learning and those who favored Western learning would prevent China from cultivating real talent. “The two [ti and yong] need one another, [having one] and lacking the other is not acceptable, if both essence and practicality are not attended to, how can talent be produced?”72 Liang proposed that Chinese and Western learning be stressed equally (zhongxi bing zhong) and that Western learning be a portion of what the Imperial University students study, but not the whole.73 Consistent with this, he also urged that the Imperial University establish a massive library to house both Chinese and Western books. In making this suggestion Liang invoked the Four Treasuries project of the Qianlong reign, an earlier Qing attempt to collect and classify knowledge in encyclopedic fashion for the purpose of displaying imperial power.74 Like an institutional version of a great encyclopedia, the university Liang envisioned was to encompass the entire world of knowledge. As such, it was marked by the modernist’s conceit that the sum total of human learning could be worked into a unified and universally agreed upon whole. Liang Qichao’s draft curriculum was overwhelmingly concentrated on Western subjects in spite of his politically sensitive claim that Chinese and Western learning would receive equal attention. In their first three years all students would be required to master a number of core subjects: classics (jingxue); neo-Confucianism (lixue); Chinese and foreign historical documents (zhong wai zhangguxue); the ancient noncanonical philosophers (zhuzixue); elementary mathematics (chuji suanxue); elementary government studies (chuji zhengzhixue); elementary geography (chuji dilixue); literature (wenxue); and physical education (ticao xue). It was here, at the most elementary level, that Chinese learning was to be taught. In addition, every student would be required to study one foreign language, either English, French, Russian, German, or Japanese, during


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the first three years. After completing the core requirements, however, all students were to do advanced study in one or two subjects. Those subjects were derived from Western disciplines, dominated by Western approaches, and clearly intended to produce specialized talent that could advance China’s effort to modernize. They were advanced mathematics (gaodeng suanxue); advanced physics (gaodeng gezhixue); advanced government studies and law (gaodeng zhengzhixue and falüxue); advanced geography and surveying (gaodeng dilixue and cehuixue); agriculture (nongxue); mineralogy (kuangxue); engineering (gongxue); commerce (shangxue); military science (bingxue); and hygiene and medicine (weishengxue and yixue).75 Liang’s regulations did not spell out in precise terms what each of the fields of study was to entail, but the document does display a crude taxonomy of knowledge in which Chinese and Western learning were interwoven. Insofar as it approached the world of knowledge, Liang’s university was to be an entirely new kind of institution, one never before seen in China or in the West. The Jingshi daxuetang he envisioned challenged the idea that Western universities represented the most advanced form of the institution conceivable. He did not say so directly, but there is a clear suggestion in Liang’s regulations that a synthesis of Chinese and Western learning, albeit one in which Western learning played the dominant role, could result in a quality of knowledge more potent than either could offer alone. At the turn of the century, for one of its most brilliant young thinkers, the rapid “contraction of China from a world into a nation in the world” opened up the possibility of new intellectual combinations at the same time that it fundamentally threatened old assumptions.76 Lost, or well on its way to being lost, was the most basic assumption of all, not only that Chinese learning contained all the essentials of knowledge, but also that those essentials possessed a morally transcendent, sacral power. There is no question that this was a titanic intellectual transition in the happening, one full of loss, even if at this point it was not completely understood as such and was not inevitably going to play out in the fashion that it did. But to the extent that loss was comprehended, an opportunity was also perceived, one that involved the possibility of redesigning the intellectual universe by expanding the purview of the university to account for all knowledge, Chinese and Western. Liang Qichao’s plan suggested the prospect of a new conceptualization of modernity, one that differed from the dominant Western model then sweeping the globe. To be sure, it was not a mature or fully articulated vision, nor did it come to fruition. But

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there is inspiration here that should not simply be dismissed, à la Joseph Levenson, as an elaborate form of denial produced by intellectuals’ driving psychological need to believe that the civilization they knew and loved could never be overwhelmed intellectually.77

politics and the opening of the jingshi daxuetang On the day he received the Zongli yamen’s memorial the Guangxu emperor approved Liang Qichao’s regulations and instructed the Ministry of Finance to provide the full amount of revenue requested (350,000 taels of silver for start-up and 180,000 taels per year thereafter).78 In the short term, it was agreed that an out-of-use imperial mansion belonging to the family of the fourth daughter of the Qianlong Emperor would be used as a temporary site for the university (the Jingshi daxuetang never did move from this “temporary” site, however).79 Owing to its former incarnation, as late as the May Fourth era one of the university’s lecture halls was playfully referred to as the “sleeping palace,” and the library, with its large rooms and ornately decorated walls, was known as the “princess’s dressing room.”80 The mansion was situated within the walls of the Imperial City close to the Di’an Gate on the eastern edge of Jingshan Park, a short distance from the northern entrance to the Forbidden City. The Jingshi daxuetang was thus located in what had once been a highly exclusive section of the Qing capital—a neighborhood whose majority population remained Manchu for the next two decades at least. The precise place where the university was located was called Mashen miao, Temple of the Protector of Horses, because a temple at which prayers were offered to the deities of the cavalry had formerly stood on the spot.81 The emperor appointed Sun Jia’nai, his former tutor, to head the institution. When the emperor selected Sun for the position he bestowed upon him the title Director of Educational Affairs (guanxue dachen), which indicated the empirewide scope of his powers. In effect, Sun was both head of the university and Minister of Education. In rank, the Director of Educational Affairs was equal to the minister in charge (shiwu dachen) of the Guozijian. His responsibilities included selecting and supervising students sent abroad for study, approving translations of foreign books and the collation of Chinese materials for classroom use, and examination of technological inventions.82 It remained to be seen just how important the Jingshi daxuetang would become, but the imperial embrace of the university signaled the


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emergence of a new domain of power that set off a round of positional jockeying among those seeking influence within the rapidly realigning institutional framework of the capital. For example, the conservative Manchu Grand Councillor, Gangyi, angled to be appointed Director of Educational Affairs. Owing to the maneuvering of leading members of the emperor’s party, however, the emperor instead chose Sun Jia’nai for the position.83 This put Sun in the position to name the chief instructor (zong jiaoxi), the officer who would have ultimate responsibility for all academic matters at the university. This most important academic post was equal in rank to the office of libationer (jijiu) at the Guozijian, and commanded a salary of three hundred taels per month. In his regulations Liang Qichao stipulated that the chief instructor must be thoroughly schooled in both Chinese and Western learning. The distinguished scholar Yan Fu, who lacked the jinshi degree and had therefore had great trouble gaining an official position, emerged as an obvious candidate. For Yan Fu such an appointment would have been sweet vindication, for it would have given him a high-profile platform from which to work for fundamental reform. But Yan fell out of the running—ostensibly because he lacked the proper bureaucratic rank—and Sun Jia’nai instead appointed Xu Jingcheng, a jinshi, and one of China’s earliest and most seasoned foreign diplomats. Xu had represented the Qing dynasty in Japan and several European countries; he was not Yan Fu’s intellectual equal, but he was deemed sufficiently worldly to serve as chief instructor. Despite his time abroad, however, Xu’s foreignlanguage skills were weak, and it was ultimately decided that the university needed two chief instructors, one responsible for Western studies (xixue) and the other, Xu Jingcheng, responsible for Chinese studies. Sun Jia’nai approached W. A. P. Martin about the Western studies position, which the former head of the Tongwen Guan accepted only after successfully negotiating a monthly salary of five hundred taels and an elevation in his civil service rank from the third to the second class.84 Sun then hired a number of foreign teachers at wages far higher than those paid to Chinese instructors.85 Many of these men were of missionary background and were already resident in China (the Chinese government was unwilling to shoulder the expense associated with recruiting better-qualified teachers from abroad). The decision to hire foreign instructors set off a vigorous lobbying effort on the part of various Western embassies, which competed with one another to place their nationals on the faculty. With their nationals serving as professors at the university, foreign diplomats believed, their countries would stand to benefit

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in the race to extend contacts and influence in China. Given this, the Italians were extremely upset to learn that no provision had been made to teach Italian at the Jingshi daxuetang. In his letter of appeal—which failed to persuade the Chinese side—the Italian ambassador reminded the Chinese government of Italy’s historical greatness, that Italians were at the forefront of the world’s nations, and that centuries earlier Italians such as Matteo Ricci had made great contributions to the cause of Chinese advancement.86 There was also competition for the position of chief manager (zongban), who was in charge of general operations at the university. The man Sun Jia’nai hoped would fill that office, Zhang Yuanji, an official in the Ministry of Justice and a leading reformer, refused the position because he was displeased by what he considered to be the corrupt practices of many of the proctors (tidiao) Sun had appointed to work with him.87 In fact, Zhang was so disgusted by the stifling political atmosphere in the capital that he decided to leave Beijing. Zhang’s departure proved highly consequential, for he soon found a far more influential niche in Shanghai as the top figure at the Commercial Press. Indeed, owing to the fact that the conservative atmosphere in Beijing did not subside over the next several decades, increasing numbers of intellectuals relocated to Shanghai, whose vibrant cultural marketplace readily absorbed their talents. When Sun Jia’nai began to develop his plans for the university he proposed the addition of a college for officials (shixue yuan), where men who already held juren and jinshi degrees could study foreign subjects. The addition of that college indicated how concerned he was to make officials who were at least superficially versed in Western learning available to the government as soon as possible.88 It was also a way of guaranteeing that the Jingshi daxuetang would have quality students to train. Experience at the Tongwen Guan had revealed how difficult it could be to persuade ambitious men to study anything other than the traditional curriculum as long as the examination system was still in place. Under the scheme developed by Liang Qichao and adopted by Sun Jia’nai, graduates of county-level schools would be entitled to shengyuan status; those who passed through provincial-level schools would earn a juren degree; and those who graduated from the Jingshi daxuetang would enter the ranks of the jinshi and become government officials. The philosopher Feng Youlan later attested to the psychological suitability of this transitional arrangement:


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At that time people still thought of credentials in terms of the examination system. No matter what the rank, they always needed to convert it into an examination system equivalent for it to make psychological sense. It is like a person who is accustomed to the old calendar translating all dates on the new calendar into old ones in order to feel they really understand. The education system promulgated by the court established elementary schools at the county level, high schools at the provincial level, and the Jingshi daxuetang in the capital—the three levels of study corresponded exactly with the three scholarly ranks of the examination system.89

As had been done at the Tongwen Guan, in an effort to attract talented students the university offered free room and board, as well as a graduated series of stipends depending on the quality of a student’s work. Space was initially allotted for five hundred students, the top thirty of whom were to be placed in the first rank, entitling them to twenty taels of silver per month. The next fifty would constitute the second rank, worth sixteen taels each month, and so on down to the sixth and lowest rank, which would have one hundred and sixty students, and pay only four taels per month.90 These inducements helped create enthusiasm for the Jingshi daxuetang; when the entrance examinations were announced hundreds signed up.91 Surely, some of these people were caught up in the spirit of reform, but the fact of the already huge oversupply of degree holders no doubt affected their thinking as well. After all, given the sudden high demand for officials with knowledge of things Western, it stood to reason that university graduates would have a decided advantage in the competition for bureaucratic office.

the cost of reaction Like so much else, however, the optimism that accompanied the early planning for the university was cut short by the coup of September 1898. Still, the university was one of the few reform movement initiatives to survive the Empress Dowager’s seizure of power.92 Its long-awaited opening day finally arrived in December 1898, when the college for officials began offering classes to one hundred plus juren and jinshi from the capital. Of these people, one observer remarked cynically that their primary interest was in the free room and board.93 There is no doubt that the university that opened in the chilly winter after the coup was a pale imitation of the one that had been planned. Among other things, the bold

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curriculum designed by Liang Qichao had been set aside in favor of one focused on the Five Classics. But conservative officials still managed to find fault with the Jingshi daxuetang. Led by the censor Wu Hongjia, they attacked the university for being too expensive and poorly managed. Zhou Shuqiao, president of the Board of Punishments, even recommended that it be closed. Fed up, Sun Jia’nai excused himself from his duties on the grounds that he was ill and in need of rest. The Empress Dowager appointed Xu Jingcheng to serve in Sun’s place in July 1899. Under his watch, courses in a scattering of Western subjects were reintroduced, but the Court’s abandonment of the plan to award the jinshi degree to university graduates, which could only have been calculated to destroy the institution, assured that few students would take their studies seriously.94 The fledgling university managed to limp along until the Boxers United in Righteousness swept into Beijing in May 1900. With its Western aura the Jingshi daxuetang stood little chance of weathering the antiimperialist furor unleashed on the capital. The fact that Grand Councillor Gangyi declared the university full of “foreigners and traitors” (yang hanjian) certainly did not help. Sun Jia’nai’s house was destroyed by the Boxers, and two professors, Liu Keyi and Francis James, an Englishman, were killed during the siege. Gruesomely, James, who was apprehended while outside the legation compound on June 20, was decapitated. His head was then displayed on a spike.95 On July 1, 1900, with W. A. P. Martin and the rest of the foreign community bunkered in the diplomatic quarter, a dispirited Xu Jingcheng memorialized the throne to recommend that the university be closed. “The university was established to earnestly pursue true knowledge, and to give equal priority to both Western and Chinese learning. At this time Western learning is not considered a priority, and as there are already plenty of schools teaching the classics . . . there is no need for one more.”96 On July 11 the Court ordered that the university close. Reform-minded officials had learned to tack in the winds of the court’s fundamental political and cultural conservatism, and so were able to shepherd the university project through the bureaucracy, but events then outpaced their efforts. A few weeks after the university was shut down, Xu Jingcheng was executed for criticizing the Court’s policy of support for the Boxers, making him one of the summer’s most famous martyrs.97 A handful of guards were assigned to protect the campus from looters, but they were soon chased away by Russian and German troops


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who were billeted in the dormitories and in W. A. P. Martin’s house. Ironically, the foreign troops then completed the Boxer’s work by vandalizing the property, smashing “every article of furniture” in Martin’s house and dumping his books “as well as those of the university . . . into the wells and cisterns.”98

chapter 2

The Imperial University and Late-Qing Beijing

During the optimistic height of the “Hundred Days’ Reform” the Jingshi daxuetang symbolized the possibility of intellectual and political transformation led by the center, but after 1900 its placement in a capital now widely held to be hopelessly corrupt and behind the times diminished its ability to attract creative and ambitious men. For many, the sense that the political center could effectively lead China out of its complex difficulties was lost, and the capital itself now came to be seen as the problem. Frederic Wakeman discusses this as the moment when the reformers’ “capital-fixation” gave way to a “new concern with nationalist issues specifically influencing local or provincial politics.”1 Reformminded literati, frustrated by the direction things were taking in Beijing, departed in great numbers for destinations south, especially Shanghai, whose economic might and international population created a dynamic culture that soon became the standard setter for the country. It is little wonder that most studies that seek to explain the causes of the 1911 Revolution focus on social and political developments far from the national capital. In particular, Shanghai and Tokyo, both far more cosmopolitan than Beijing, became gathering places for Chinese activists of all stripes, reformers and (increasingly) revolutionaries alike. Those two metropolises absorbed the lion’s share of the political dynamism that the Qing Court forfeited in the final years of the nineteenth century. Activists who now made Shanghai their home found in that entrepôt greater room for social, cultural, and intellectual innovation than was 40


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possible in the North. By the turn of the century, the wealth and talent of the Jiangnan elite, which had rapidly flowed into Shanghai during the Taiping Rebellion, brought about an early flowering of urban gentry culture in that city. Moreover, as Wen-hsin Yeh has written, the cultural tastes favored by Shanghai’s rising bourgeoisie distinguished the city and made it a true “cultural rival to Beijing,” the traditional center of gravity in the late imperial era. In contrast to the “refined and distilled high culture of the gentry-official-literati” for which Beijing was known, Shanghai’s culture was less wed to the imperial state and the tastes to which it gave rise. The Hai pai, or “Shanghai style,” was more open, flashy, and friendly to experimentation than the more staid Jing pai, or “capital style.” As Shanghai asserted its cultural and economic prowess, it developed into “a central stage of activity,” which drew Jiangnan notables “out of their provincial enclaves and put them in touch with national events.”2 The international flavor of life in Shanghai also produced heightened sensitivity to the world outside China—Western and non-Western—and to new ways of thinking about life within the country, thereby contributing both to the recognition of new kinds of economic opportunities and to a demand for educational institutions that could prepare the children of the urban gentry to take advantage of those opportunities.3 The imperial government’s focus on education for the purpose of training servants of the state left a vacuum that was swiftly filled by the private efforts of the Jiangnan elite. By the first decade of the twentieth century, Shanghai emerged as the locus of “non-official efforts at the founding of institutes of higher education”—the revolutionary schools discussed by Mary Rankin and others—and the more enduring “middleclass colleges” whose cultural style and social role Wen-hsin Yeh has more recently analyzed.4 Colleges such as Nanyang (Nanyang gonxue), China, and Zhendan (later Fudan) attracted the sons and, increasingly, daughters of the elite, who attended new-style schools in the cities and capitals of the central and southern provinces. This assertion of a limited autonomy from the demands and direct interests of the imperial state was not altogether new. However, as Yeh has argued, the private college movement grew out of a distinct pattern of protest against the status quo—in particular, against the political limitations placed on students at existing institutions of higher learning, whether they were in Japan or in China. Furthermore, though several of the earliest revolutionary and gentry-founded schools cultivated an informal, personal atmosphere similar to that of more traditional acade-

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mies, in curricular terms they were quite distinct. Unlike the independent-spirited shuyuan of the late imperial era, the new colleges in Shanghai pushed beyond the boundaries of the traditional Chinese intellectual universe to stress scientific knowledge and Western political thought. “Private gentry-initiated colleges of the turn of the century were deeply involved in such intellectual pursuits as Yan Fu’s ‘Society for the Study of J. S. Mill’s Logic,’ ” and “they were also directly engaged in the agitation for political reform and revolution that culminated in the 1911 Revolution.”5 But despite the rapid development of schools in Shanghai and throughout central and southern China, the growth in new institutions was unable to keep up with the demand. As a result, by 1905–1906 some ten thousand (liberal estimates put the number closer to twenty thousand) Chinese students, most of them well into their twenties, were studying in Tokyo, where they were exposed not only to a Western-style curriculum but also to the relatively more open intellectual and cultural environment of Meiji society.6 With the publication of Liang Qichao’s Qingyi bao (The China Discussion) and, starting in February 1902, Xinmin congbao (New People’s Miscellany), as well as countless other journals and newspapers printed by Chinese resident in Japan, students and exiled intellectuals came into contact with a wide new world of Western learning. The political space afforded Chinese in Tokyo also permitted intensive political organizing that was difficult to conduct in China. The connections between the Chinese intellectual communities in Tokyo and Shanghai were highly developed. The relative political and legal protection offered by life in Tokyo and in the foreign-controlled parts of Shanghai enabled the two cities to play host to similar social and political elements, and travel between them was therefore frequent. Chinese-language publications printed in Tokyo were circulated in Shanghai, and the booming Shanghai publishing industry and journalistic press also assured that books, newspapers, and magazines from China would find their way into the hands of Chinese living in Japan.7 Radical activists in the two cities were in contact with one another and not infrequently acted in concert, and many of those who played leading roles in the revolutionary movement in Shanghai in the early part of the century had spent time in Japan. Beijing students, too, were affected by the radical political sentiment sweeping China at this time. Nevertheless, the crushing of the reform movement and the Qing Court’s support for the Boxers convinced most activists that the capital was no


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longer the place from which to work for fundamental social and political change. In his study of the Xinzheng, or “New Systems Reforms,” initiated by the Qing Court in 1901, however, Douglas Reynolds challenges the idea that the Manchu government crumbled under the weight of its own indifference and ineptitude. He goes so far as to say that the Xinzheng reforms, which were greatly aided by what he refers to as a “golden decade” of cooperation between China and Japan, amounted to one of the great “quiet” revolutions in Chinese history. Though the Meiji-style Xinzheng reforms could not stave off the revolution that toppled the Qing dynasty in 1911, Reynolds argues that they succeeded in remaking China, and, further, that “the China we know today (and on into the foreseeable future) is grounded so thoroughly on intellectual and institutional foundations of the Xinzheng years that China in the twentieth century is unthinkable apart from the Xinzheng Revolution.”8 Though Reynolds’s claims are overstated, his work does suggest the need to reconsider whether the imperial “center” was as dead and gone in the first decade of the twentieth century as scholars have believed. Since the Jingshi daxuetang was revived as part of the Xinzheng policies, a better understanding of the university’s history during the final decade of the Qing era can provide one baseline for evaluating Reynolds’s revisionist argument.

starting anew: zhang baixi and the “renyin university” In the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion the Empress Dowager did an about-face and threw her support behind a program of fundamental institutional reform. Over the following months, a great deal of attention was focused on the problem of education in particular. In September 1901 the Court directed that shuyuan in provincial capitals be converted into colleges, and in January 1902 (the renyin year), after the Court returned to Beijing, the Jingshi daxuetang was ordered to reopen, this time with the Guozijian and the Tongwen Guan merged into it. Zhang Baixi, president of the Board of Works and newly appointed president of the Board of Punishments, who had been actively making recommendations about how best to reform the education system, was appointed Director of Educational Affairs, the position formerly held by Sun Jia’nai and the ill-fated Xu Jingcheng.

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Zhang Baixi had served as regional examiner in Shandong, Sichuan, and Jiangxi, as provincial director of education in Shandong and Guangdong, as a libationer of the Guozijian, and as tutor to imperial princes before being tapped by the Empress Dowager.9 Although he backed Kang Youwei in 1898, his role in the “Hundred Days’ Reform” was limited enough that his career was not derailed. Indeed, owing to his loyalist recommendations for reform and his ties to the Manchu Grand Councilor Ronglu, following the Boxer debacle Zhang became one of the Empress Dowager’s trusted officials. The scarcity of capable, experienced officials at this time opened the possibility of rapid advancement for men like Zhang Baixi. Around the time he was appointed Director of Educational Affairs, Zhang was also promoted to the presidency of the Board of Civil Appointments, the most important position in the six boards.10 In the tradition of Huang Zongxi, and following cosmopolitan officials like Zeng Guofan and Zhang Zhidong, Zhang Baixi firmly believed that the central government, not private academy heads at the local level, should be in charge of education within the empire. He was deeply concerned about the Court’s failure to stand out as a leader of reform, and he proved himself a dynamic leader for the university. According to Ye Gongzhuo, a prominent Republican-era official who attended the Jingshi daxuetang as a student, Zhang Baixi’s contribution to the development of Beijing University was second only to that of the famous Cai Yuanpei.11 Under his leadership, for a brief period, it appeared as though the “highest school” might become an energetic center of reform after all. In revamping the university and the empire’s broader educational system, however, Zhang Baixi had to navigate an extremely delicate political situation, pushing for meaningful reform while being careful not to appear too liberal to more conservative (and powerful) figures in the capital bureaucracy. In one of his early memorials to the throne, Zhang claimed that foreign countries would use the Qing Court’s treatment of the Jingshi daxuetang as a gauge by which to measure the Manchus’ newfound dedication to reform. “Now that the court has committed itself to reform in all areas the principles governing the university should be made very precise, and in scale [the university] should be grand,” he wrote, “not merely to please scholars, but because all the countries of the world will be watching.” Zhang appealed to national pride to leverage funds, asserting that the humble nature of the campus during the school’s first two years in operation had provoked ridicule from foreigners. A wellappointed, world-class university rising out of the rubble of post-Boxer


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Beijing would be the perfect symbol that China’s leaders had truly opted to join the modern world. As it was currently, Zhang said, the space allotted to the Imperial University was less even than that allotted to schools in the provinces. Could it be that the sponsors of provincial academies were more willing to fund and better appreciated the importance of new-style education than the imperial government? For the “highest school” to be inferior to schools located in the provinces was unacceptable, Zhang said.12 Crowded into the center of the Imperial City in buildings originally built for another purpose, the university was indeed a very modest compound. It could not compare to the more extensive grounds and larger buildings that made up the imperial university in Tokyo. According to the American scholar Charles Franklin Thwing, president of Case Western Reserve and a visitor to the Jingshi daxuetang, the “low rambling buildings of the Imperial University” closely hugged “the gray walls of the yellow-tiled Forbidden City.” Thwing wrote that, “like Chinese houses these buildings are usually of one story, seldom of more than two, built about small square courts which open upon each other through broad gateways,” and “within these gray brick walls are found simple rooms for the giving and hearing of lectures. . . . How unlike the gardens and the green velvety quadrangle and ivy-covered towers of Oxford and Cambridge were the simple stone floors and courts and brick walls of the Chinese university!”13 In 1903 Zhang Baixi asked the Court to relocate the Jingshi daxuetang to a site outside the city walls so that it could be constructed on a more expansive scale; this required more revenue than the state was prepared to supply, however, and the university remained at its original location.14 Like Nanyang College, Zhang Baixi declared that the Imperial University needed to have a vibrant translation bureau (yishuju). He urged that two branches of a university translation bureau be established, one in Beijing and one in Shanghai.15 Zhang was especially concerned to translate Japanese books. In addition, he announced that the Imperial University’s translation bureau should assume responsibility for sanctioning translations of widely used books and textbooks, as well as standardized versions of the Four Books and Five Classics. Additionally, Zhang ordered that a compilation bureau (bianyiju) be established on the site of the former Guanshu ju. The compilation bureau delegated leading professors at the Jingshi daxuetang to compile their lecture notes into publishable textbooks that were then to be used across the empire.16 Zhang also emphasized the importance of collecting books. He suggested

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that these be acquired from official collections in Jiangnan, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Hubei, Yangzhou, and other places, and that private holdings also be tapped.17 Zhang admitted that the expenses associated with all of these endeavors were going to be great—in fact, more than double the amount allotted for the university in 1898—and he therefore suggested new sources of funding. Since the provinces would send graduates from their institutions of higher learning to the Jingshi daxuetang for further training, Zhang proposed that they be required to contribute funds for the university. The larger provinces were to contribute twenty thousand taels annually, while the middle-size provinces were to contribute ten thousand and the small ones five thousand.18 If the university was to have a real impact on Chinese society, Zhang Baixi argued that the graduation of students needed to begin as soon as possible and that the country had to make full use of their talents. Toward that end, he called for a sucheng ke (accelerated course) consisting of a shixue guan (college for officials) and a shifan guan (teachers’ college). Zhang hoped these programs would commence immediately— whereas the yubeike (preparatory college) and the daxue zhuanmen fenke (regular university) would open a few years later. The college for officials was to be for officials in the capital below the fifth and above the eighth rank who now sought an education in Western learning. The teachers’ college, the institutional forerunner of Beijing shifan daxue (Beijing Normal University), was specially designed for those who were going to become middle-school teachers in their home provinces. Upon graduation, all students from the teachers’ college were required to teach for a minimum of five years before they could become eligible for government office. The Empress Dowager approved Zhang Baixi’s recommendations on February 13, 1902. Thereafter, the Director of Educational Affairs worked to revise the university’s regulations, which he submitted in September.

the politics of personnel Shortly after taking office, Zhang Baixi boldly dismissed virtually the entire foreign faculty that had previously taught at the Jingshi daxuetang. This decision was likely made at least in part to forestall conservative criticism, for it signaled unequivocally that the Qing government, not foreigners, was going to be in charge of the university. The diplomatic community in Beijing was prepared for the possibility that W. A. P. Martin might not be rehired, owing to his advanced age and because he had


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sharply attacked the Empress Dowager during the Boxer siege, but a wholesale firing of the Western professoriat was not expected. When it came, it caused great shock, especially given that the various foreign embassies had worked so hard to place their countrymen on the faculty in the first place. Zhang claimed that he was forced to dismiss the foreign faculty to save money, which is plausible, given that foreigners received such large salaries. W. A. P. Martin, who lived through the terrifying Boxer siege holed up in the legation quarter, dragged the American embassy into the affair, agreeing to retire only after being offered a generous package that paid him in full for the eighteen months during which the university had been closed.19 Many of the officials Zhang Baixi hired and upon whom he relied for advice—Shen Zhaozhi, Li Xisheng, Zhang Heling, Zeng Guangquan and Zhao Congfan—were closely aligned with Wang Kangnian, one of the leading reformers of 1898. According to Luo Dunyong, another of Zhang’s appointees, conservative officials were upset that these more progressive figures received the most powerful and best paying postings at the university. Another relatively progressive appointee was Yu Shimei, who had served on Li Hongzhang’s secretarial staff and accompanied Li on his travels around the world. The most important academic position Zhang Baixi had to fill, however, was that of chief instructor, which had previously belonged jointly to W. A. P. Martin and Xu Jingcheng. As had Sun Jia’nai, Zhang sought to fill the position with a single respected scholar versed in both Chinese and Western learning. Yan Fu’s name again rose to the top of the list, but when opposition mounted, Zhang instead appointed Yan to head the university’s translation bureau. He then zeroed in on Yan’s friend, Wu Rulun, whom Li Hongzhang had appointed director of Baoding’s Lianchi shuyuan, the foremost academy in Zhili.20 The decision to name Wu Rulun chief instructor was to have a lasting influence on the political and cultural identity of the Jingshi daxuetang over the next decade and a half, for Wu was a leading figure in the Tongcheng School—“by far the most influential voice concerning prose theory through most of the nineteenth century.”21 Wu was a master of the guwen (ancient prose) style, which was “ideologically grounded in the Confucian Classics and the Ch’eng-Chu doctrine and methodically steeped in the unadorned and versatile style of historians and T’ang-Sung writers.”22 A protégé of Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, and a staunch Qing loyalist, Wu was held in high esteem because of his refusal throughout his career to take advantage of his personal connections to secure

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high office. Ironically, in order to secure approval for Wu’s hire Zhang Baixi had to request that the throne grant the eminent scholar a higher rank so that he could even qualify for the position. It is little wonder that Wu Rulun and Yan Fu became close friends and made common cause in criticizing the failings of the civil service examination system and the careerist mentality to which it gave rise.23 Wu Rulun’s association with the Tongcheng School (he was in fact a native of Tongcheng County in Anhui) might suggest that he was anything but a champion of reform, for, historically, the Tongcheng School had been “distinguished by its full accommodation of the ‘eight-legged’ (pa-ku) essay” and its strong ties to the Manchu government, ChengZhu orthodoxy (Song Learning), and the civil service examination system.24 But in keeping with the increasingly syncretic nature of classical studies in the late decades of the imperial era, it was Wu’s mentor, Zeng Guofan, a tireless advocate of statecraft scholarship, who kept the Tongcheng tradition strong in the middle of the nineteenth century.25 Wu was introduced to Zeng Guofan in the 1860s. Thereafter, he became a member of Zeng’s brain trust (mufu) in Nanjing; when Zeng was appointed governor-general of Zhili in 1869, Wu went with him. After Zeng’s death, Wu became a member of Li Hongzhang’s brain trust. Though renowned for his classical scholarship, as a protégé of Zeng and Li, Wu advocated greater attention to Western learning (so much so that the Boxers attacked his academy in Baoding and tried to murder Wu), and he strongly supported the educational reform initiatives passed during the “Hundred Days’ Reform.” His close ties to Li Hongzhang seem to have made him an acceptable choice for the Jingshi daxuetang position in the eyes of the Empress Dowager.26 Wu’s support for the Tongcheng style did not contradict his progressive political leanings. Indeed, he was concerned that Western ideas be translated into the clearest and most precise prose possible and believed the Tongcheng style was the best for this purpose. When Wu Rulun finally accepted the position of chief instructor, he did so on the condition that he first be sent to Japan to undertake a systematic study of that country’s educational system.27 For years he had advocated abandoning the eight-legged essay format and abolishing the examination system; he also encouraged Chinese reformers to hire Japanese instructors because he believed them well qualified to teach in China and because they did not demand exorbitant salaries, as did Westerners. In 1901, together with Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai, and a Japanese educator, Nakajima Saishi, Wu Rulun opened the first Japanese-run secondary school in Bei-


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jing, the East Asian Culture Academy (Tobun Gakusha). Zhang Baixi agreed to Wu’s request to travel to Japan, and in June 1902 Wu arrived in Nagasaki to start what was to be a well-publicized four-month official study tour. Wu was granted an audience with the Meiji emperor during his stay, in addition to meetings with the education minister and the president of Tokyo University. The outcome of his tour was a 568-page book, Collected Records of Travels East (Dongyou conglu), which contributed greatly to Chinese understanding of Japan’s schools and helped pave the way for China’s imminent wholesale adoption of the Japanese educational model.28 As mentioned, Zhang Baixi also hired Yan Fu to serve as director of the Beijing branch of the Jingshi daxuetang’s translation bureau. Before that, in the early stages of Zhang Baixi’s tenure, Yan Fu offered him advice as to how best to improve the university, including the suggestion that he dismiss W. A. P. Martin. Like Wu Rulun, Yan had close ties to Li Hongzhang and was a follower of Tongcheng literary conventions; both men also shared a deep commitment to Western learning and in particular to the theory of Social Darwinism. Yan greatly respected Wu’s knowledge in the realm of Western learning as well as his literary acumen; on a number of occasions he sought Wu’s counsel on how best to improve his translations. Yan also asked Wu to write prefaces for some of his works, including Tianyan lun, Yan’s tremendously influential translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics.29 Zhang Baixi also hired Lin Shu, often mistaken as another of Wu Rulun’s stylistic protégés, to serve as assistant director at the translation bureau. While at the university, first with the translation bureau and later as a member of the teaching faculty, Lin Shu developed into one of the most prolific translators in modern Chinese history. Though leaders of the New Culture Movement later attacked him, almost all of them had read and were influenced by his translations. Indeed, Lin’s translation career was critically important to the elevation of Western literature in the minds of Chinese intellectuals, and his work also helped legitimate the role of the novelist in China.30 After he joined the Jingshi daxuetang faculty, Lin became closely associated with a number of Wu Rulun’s more conservative disciples, such as Tongcheng native Ma Qichang, and Ma’s brothers-in-law, Yao Yongpu and Yao Yonggai, who were grandsons of the famous Tongcheng scholar Yao Ying—himself the grand-nephew of Yao Nai, the founder of the Tongcheng School. In the waning years of the Qing dynasty and the early years of the Republican era, with Lin, Ma, and the Yao brothers, as well as Guo Lishan, all teaching there, the

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university’s literature department was dominated by Tongcheng traditionalists. The old orthodoxy still stood, its position largely unchallenged, for at this juncture the Tongcheng School’s two main rivals—the New Text and the Han Learning Schools—were in no position to compete for supremacy.31 Though Zhang Baixi’s decision to hire Wu Rulun thus left a lasting impact on the Jingshi daxuetang, Wu died in 1903, soon after returning from Japan, never having taken up his position at the university.32 In his place, Zhang Baixi appointed Zhang Heling, a Jiangsu native and the leading figure in the Yanghu pai (Lake Yang School), an offshoot of the Tongcheng School.33 The men Zhang Baixi hired to fill the two most important posts below Zhang Heling’s were both Japanese, however, thus indicating the ongoing influence of Wu Rulun’s priorities and the beginning of what would be a decade of heavy Japanese influence at the Jingshi daxuetang and in China in general. Iwaya Magozo, a professor of law at Kyoto Imperial University who had a doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Halle in Germany, was appointed dean of the college for officials. One of Iwaya’s close associates, Sugi Eizaburo, a graduate of Tokyo University in law, also entered the employ of the Jingshi daxuetang at this time, thereby reinforcing Iwaya’s influence. Another Japanese, Hattori Unokichi, who earned a doctorate in Chinese philosophy at Tokyo University and then spent time studying at the University of Berlin before being made a full professor at Tokyo University, was hired by the Chinese government to set up a new teachers’ college (shifan guan) at the Jingshi daxuetang. Between 1903 and 1906 nine more Japanese were hired to teach there, most of them in the natural sciences. Hattori Unokichi—who, along with Iwaya Mazogo, had been hired by Wu Rulun while the latter was in Japan—played a particularly important role at the Jingshi daxuetang over the next seven years.34 Hattori had first gone to Beijing in 1899 as a student (although he was already an assistant professor at Tokyo University). As an expert in Chinese philosophy, he found this a tremendously exciting opportunity. But when the Boxers entered Beijing the young academic was one of sixty Japanese who spent those agonizing summer weeks barricaded within the city’s legation quarter. Needless to say, Hattori’s experiences in China left a negative impression, and it is not surprising that he asserted afterward that China needed Japan’s guidance. Hattori was at Berlin University working with German sinologists when he received a cable from the Japanese Ministry of Education inquiring whether he would be


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interested in returning to Beijing to lead a new teachers’ college at the revamped Jingshi daxuetang.35 Zhang Baixi also hired several Chinese who had studied at Japanese universities to serve as instructors. Among these people were Fan Yuanlian, the future Minister of Education, and Zhang Zongxiang and Lu Zongyu, who were regarded as the most pro-Japanese officials in the Beijing government during the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919. These men, too, contributed to the rising Japanese influence at the university by, among other things, encouraging students to go to Japan to further their educations. Fan Yuanlian and other Chinese served as translators for Hattori Unokichi and other Japanese professors who did not speak Chinese well enough to teach in the language.36 Other Chinese who had studied in Europe or the United States were also hired as translators for the small number of Europeans who were invited to teach foreign languages at the university. Men such as Yang Wenhui, a prominent scholar of Buddhism who had served in the Chinese legations in London and Paris; Jiang Kanghu, who had studied in Japan, Europe, and the United States and later founded the Chinese Socialist Party; Gu Hongming, a Malay Chinese educated in Scotland and Germany who had worked for Zhang Zhidong for two decades; and Zou Daijun, an outstanding cartographer who had spent a considerable period of time in Europe in a diplomatic capacity, were hired either as translators or as full-time faculty in their own right. Among the other prominent Chinese scholars who were hired were the historian and geographer Tu Ji and the noted classicists Sun Yirang and Wang Zhouyao. The fact that Japanese were in so prominent a position at the Jingshi daxuetang meant that Western ideas were given a great deal of attention. It also meant that the people who presented those ideas were accustomed to translating Western thinking into terms relevant to an Asian society, a factor that no doubt made the Japanese scholars attractive to the Qing government. Hattori Unokichi and Iwaya Magozo were what Paula Harrell has described as an essentially cosmopolitan generation of Japanese intellectuals. They were also progressive thinkers who viewed themselves as apostles of modernity. Shortly after getting to Beijing, for example, Hattori Unokichi undertook to arrange a meeting between the outspoken Japanese feminist Shimoda Utako and Empress Dowager Cixi in hopes of persuading the Chinese leader of the importance of women’s education, a cause to which Hattori was deeply committed. In addition, Hattori’s wife, Shigeko, a former student of Shimoda Utako, made a con-

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tribution to the feminist movement in China by arranging for the revolutionary Chinese feminist Qiu Jin to enroll in Shimoda Utako’s Girls’ Practical School in Tokyo.37 Nevertheless, the cosmopolitan spirit exemplified by this generation of Japanese intellectuals was partially undercut by their calculated thinking along nationalistic lines and the opinion openly expressed among them that it was Japan’s duty and earned right to lead Asia’s modernization drive. Revealing just how aggressive he wanted Japan to be in pursuing positions of influence in China, in a 1904 article in the Japanese journal Kyoiku kai (Education World) Hattori Unokichi sharply warned his country’s educational leaders of the need to compete for influence in the Chinese capital with ambitious Western nations anxious to reestablish their position at the university.38 I have not come across direct evidence of tension over the pronounced Japanese influence at the Jingshi daxuetang, but Sino-Japanese relations were fraught with underlying difficulties at this time. Years later, Hattori Unokichi in fact criticized some of his Japanese compatriots for arrogance toward the Chinese. Chinese were understandably impressed by Meiji Japan’s rapid modernization, but they were also wary of Japanese imperialism and what they perceived to be Japan’s smug sense of cultural and national superiority. Chinese students in Japan often had to endure insults and condescension from ordinary Japanese. As Jerome Grieder writes, “They found themselves often ridiculed as uncouth bumpkins who stuffed their mouths with food as they walked, blew their noses between their fingers without recourse to handkerchiefs, and affected a strange mixture of Chinese and Japanese attire.” It is no wonder that most students returned to China with a strongly antiJapanese bias.39

the transitional character of the university’s culture In late summer 1902 Zhang Baixi submitted and gained approval for his comprehensive plan for a national school system. The plan presented a vision of a modern education system that was essentially an updated version of China’s ancient school system: When one studies modern [school] systems [it is apparent] that they are very similar to that of ancient China’s golden age. The Book of Rites states: “each family has a school, as does each community and city, and the coun-


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try has the national school (guoxue).” In comparing this to other countries today, the national school is the same as a so-called university, and the family, community, and city schools are equal to so-called pre-, elementary, and secondary schools.40

In citing the Book of Rites Zhang undoubtedly intended to soothe those who opposed and feared fundamental change. But Zhang’s reference to the Classics was not merely instrumental; he appears to have genuinely believed that China’s ancient and medieval schools provided a ready blueprint by which to reorganize the country’s education system at the beginning of the twentieth century. Among other things, this meant that he was unprepared to accept the Western idea that universities needed a high degree of autonomy from the state. Zhang never wavered from the fundamental idea that the Jingshi daxuetang was an agency in the service of the imperial government. In the Imperial University Regulations that he authored Zhang decreed that, once per month, officials at the Jingshi daxuetang were to lead the student body in a study of imperial edicts and the performance of ritual observances at the altar to Confucius, and that students would be required to observe the Empress Dowager’s, Emperor’s, and Confucius’s birthdays.41 Zhang Baixi’s educational plan was far more extensive than those put forth earlier by Liang Qichao and Sun Jia’nai, and for the first time included detailed regulations for a national system of elementary and secondary schools under the supervision of the university. His curriculum for the Jingshi daxuetang was divided into four different tracks: the daxue zhuanmen fenke (regular university); the yubeike (preparatory college); the shixue guan (the officials’ college); and the shifan guan (teachers’ training college). The regular university was for advanced college study and was based on the Japanese model; in 1902 there were no students ready to enter it. The three-year preparatory college was designed to give students a basic education that would prepare them for regular university study.42 While the curricula for the officials’ and teachers’ colleges were tailored to the specific needs of students enrolled in them, all other students were required to master the preparatory program material before going on to specialize at the regular university level.43 Upon graduation from the preparatory, officials’, or teachers’ college, students would be awarded the juren degree and would be eligible to enter the regular university. When it was fully operational the regular university was to offer specialization in government (zhengzhi), literature

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(wenxue), natural science (gezhi), agriculture (nongxue), engineering (gongyi), commerce (shangwu), and medicine (yishu). Graduates from any one of those programs would receive the jinshi degree and become eligible for official work in the capital.44 The men who sat for the examination to get into the officials’ college in fall 1902 were mostly middle-level degree holders recommended by government offices in the capital. Students for the teachers’ college were selected from among men already in the capital as well as by provincial education committees (each province was given a quota, depending on its size).45 The majority of those admitted to the teachers’ college were fusheng (secondary students), linsheng (stipend students), jiansheng (students from the Guozijian, most of whom did not live in the capital), or baqi guanxue xueyuan (students from the Eight Banners school). Together, the officials’ and teachers’ colleges accepted approximately two hundred students, about twothirds of them in the teachers’ college. The government paid all of the students’ expenses and supplied them with dormitories in which to live (two to a room). Roughly half of those whose names were on a student roster compiled in 1903 were from the five provinces of Zhili, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Hunan. Another list compiled several years later also reveals that of a combined total of 413 graduates from the teachers’ and preparatory colleges in 1907 and 1909, far and away the largest number of students were from the wealthy, developed, coastal provinces. Most were Han Chinese in their late twenties from gentry families in the Jiangnan region and the area around the capital. There was also a fair scattering of Manchus and Chinese with purchased banner status—enough, in fact, to form the Jingshi daxuetang Eight Banner Student Association (Baqi tongxuehui).46 The Jingshi daxuetang was a new-style university designed to help usher China into the modern era, but as the following instructions make clear, the opening ceremony held on December 18, 1902 was drawn straight out of the culture of ritual pomp and hierarchy that characterized the imperial era. When they reach the altar to Confucius each student will perform a kowtow. After the proper respects are paid the Director of Educational Affairs [Zhang Baixi] will change robes, and the proctor will lead the students . . . to the steps leading to the main hall, where they will divide according to their classes and stand facing north. The professors . . . will stand in the proper order below the eastern steps, facing southeast. Various officers and the men in charge of the translation bureau will line up in rank order below the western steps, also facing southeast. The Director of Educational Affairs will then emerge and stand before the steps. The students from the two colleges will face north and bow to him three times. Then they will face north-


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west and bow three times to the professors, who will reciprocate with bows of their own. The students will exchange bows with the other university officials and the heads of the translation bureau. Then the proctor will lead them back to their dormitories.47

Nobody who participated in this ritual would have failed to grasp the tripartite linkage between Confucius, the Qing government, and the Jingshi daxuetang. The solemn displays of deference (measured according to where one stood relative to others and the order in which one offered and received bows of respect) made plain that while the university signaled the imperial Court’s receptivity to new ideas, the Court continued to view education and the inculcation of loyalty to the reigning social and political order as part of a single process. Nevertheless, views on education were varied and undergoing rapid change at this time. The fluid nature of attitudes about higher education was evident among students at the Jingshi daxuetang. Young men such as Yu Tongkui, who was in the first class to enter the teachers’ college, enrolled at the university because they believed it to be committed to teaching a fresh type of thinking that could open doors to promising new careers. Others, such as Wang Daoyuan, entered with the expectation that the curriculum would be a traditional one focused on the Classics. Indeed, because the imperial government was intent on grooming students for government service, it paid as much attention to the cultivation of the students’ moral character as it did to their intellectual preparedness. Only men who came from reputable families and who demonstrated upright behavior were admitted for study in the first place. In one indication of the importance placed on family background, a roster of students who attended the Jingshi daxuetang between 1903 and 1906 included the names of their great-grandfathers, grandfathers, and fathers.48 Once at the university, students had to conform to the norms and practices of officialdom. As were shengyuan enrolled in dynastic schools, they were accustomed to the display of imperial maxims and to Confucian ceremonies; students were expected to show proper respect to those of higher rank, make sacrifices at the Confucian altar on the first of every month, and commit themselves to the highest standards of self-discipline. In the preface to a 1903 handbook spelling out the regulations governing university life, chief instructor Zhang Heling sounded traditional Neo-Confucian themes when he wrote: “In establishing schools, if times for work and rest are not set, if times for activity and silence are not habitual, if diligence and laziness are not regulated, if it is impossible to dis-

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tinguish between virtuous men and fools, and all is idleness and unrestrained pleasure-seeking . . . how is it possible to pursue learning?”49 Students who consulted their rulebooks knew they were not all to speak at the same time in class, but rather to take turns doing so, and to keep their voices from becoming too loud. They understood, too, that they were required to live in the dormitories and were not allowed to spend the night elsewhere without permission; had to appear in school-issued attire at all times; were expected to be quiet and well-behaved in the dormitories; had to abstain from looking at forbidden reading materials; and were to avoid involvement in political matters. If they disobeyed these rules, students were subject to a detailed system for recording demerits (jiguo). Large demerits were given to students who missed class without permission, who left campus without signing out, or who left the classroom before a professor had finished his lecture. Regular demerits could be assessed against those who failed to bow when the professor entered the classroom, who got into disputes with their fellow students, or who harassed the servants and cooks without just cause. On the other hand, students were rewarded for strong performances on exams and for exemplary daily conduct. These merits and demerits were then used to determine an overall performance grade, and had a direct bearing on the students’ ranks and salaries post graduation.50 The all-encompassing nature of these rules makes it safe to assume that students not infrequently sought to express a degree of independence by acting out against the Jingshi daxuetang’s authoritarian culture. It is hard to imagine why the authorities would have designed specific rules forbidding them from, for instance, writing anonymous essays attacking the emperor, behaving in a disruptive fashion, smoking opium, or urinating wherever they pleased, if such things did not transpire. As Jon L. Saari explains, students who were exposed to modern ideas at new-style schools often experienced tremendous psychological tension when confronted by parents, teachers, or institutions still bound to oldfashioned values and expectations. This contributed to the emergence of “educated youth” as a “separate, self-conscious, countercultural group in society” that valued self-assertiveness and self-expression sometimes to the point of rebelling openly against Confucian precepts regarding loyalty, deference, and hierarchy. In light of these observations, it becomes clear why, in the early years of the century, students across the country so often clashed with authorities over the way their schools were run.51 All this aside, in its earliest years life at the Jingshi daxuetang seems


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to have been quite comfortable. The students lived well; many had personal servants who addressed them as laoye (esquire), informed them when it was time to go to class, and delivered articles—paper, ink, tea— their masters needed during class. In addition to plentiful meals free of charge, students also received stipends—generous enough that some of the less well-to-do among them were able to send money home to their families. But it was the meals that former students consistently recorded with the greatest fondness. We were not required to pay tuition, and the school also provided our meals. At every meal eight people would sit at a table, [to share] six dishes and one soup. In the winter it was modified to four dishes and a hot pot, and there was always chicken, duck, fish, and pork. . . . If the meal was poor the school’s superintendent would immediately get furious and punish the cooks.52

Zou Shuwen, a student at the teachers’ college, recalled that the faculty and administrators were extremely good to the students, to the extent that they even sat at the table with them (in the seats reserved for guests of honor) during meal times, and Hu Xiansu, who enrolled at the Jingshi daxuetang in 1909, recalled rumors about life at the university under Zhang Baixi, when students and teachers were said to have stayed up late into the night talking together, the faculty members treating the students as their own sons. The father–son motif that runs through memoir accounts of this period echoes the cultural milieu of traditional academies. Since the students were mostly married men in their twenties or thirties, some of whom already possessed advanced degrees, this level of camaraderie between students and teachers was probably quite natural. As time passed, however, and the incoming classes of students were filled with younger men, the warm and personal atmosphere of the early years gradually gave way to a more impersonal environment.53 Life at the Jingshi daxuetang was dominated by preoccupation with traditional markers of rank and status. Although degrees equivalent to those one could earn through the civil service examination system were awarded upon graduation from the university, as long as the examination system was still in place (until 1905) students remained oriented in that direction. Most of them sat for the traditional examinations whenever they were held in their home provinces; indeed, the dormitories lost half their occupants each time an examination was held in the provinces. In the summer of 1903 over a dozen students from the teachers’ college earned juren status, and the following year one earned jinshi status, in

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this manner. In an extraordinary case, Chen Hanzhang, a disciple of the learned Han Learning scholar Yu Yue, and a classmate of Zhang Taiyan’s, refused to graduate from and start teaching at the university until he was in his fifties, despite the fact that he was, as a student and a juren degree holder, one of the most erudite men on campus, and that officials at the Jingshi daxuetang had attempted to hire him onto the faculty years earlier. Even after the abolition of the examination system and the founding of modern-style schools, more than anything else Chen still wanted to be a Hanlin scholar.54 Students at the officials’ college concurrently served as bureaucrats in the capital, and they routinely missed classes to attend to official business. Zou Shuwen remembered being particularly impressed when one classmate, a member of the Hanlin Academy, excused himself to attend an imperial audience.55 The fact that students had one foot in the classroom and one foot in government office led them to worry as much about their bureaucratic ranks and salaries as about their studies, if not more. In 1903, for example, when the Empress Dowager ordered that all recent jinshi would henceforth be required to study Western learning at the Jingshi daxuetang in a special college for jinshi degree holders, the new regulation caused a furor. The jinshi degree holders resented the addition of yet another academic hurdle before they could assume office. To mollify those affected by the policy change, the university was ordered to pay each of the jinshi three hundred taels of silver a year so that they could support their families in a manner befitting men of their degree status. When students in the officials’ and teachers’ colleges learned of this, they joined together to protest the unequal treatment, agitating for a family sustenance wage for themselves as well. The controversy did not die down until Zhang Baixi amended the university’s charter to give every student below the rank of jinshi a sixty-tael family-support allowance.56 Though obviously still bound up in the examination system mentality, in terms of their intellectual and political orientation most students nevertheless were drawn to the new and the foreign. Some of the bestknown scholars in the country had been hired to teach traditional subjects at the university, yet few students showed much interest in the courses they taught. Wang Daoyuan asserted that the Jingshi daxuetang students were much like those across China at the turn of the century in that they were attracted to the concepts of freedom, democracy, and revolution, often despite the fact that they had only a vague understanding of these terms. Although the university library had very few foreign books or periodicals, students coveted and were able to acquire copies


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of banned reading materials such as Liang Qichao’s Yinbingshi wenji (Writings from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio) and Xinmin congbao, the immensely popular newspaper Liang published from exile in Japan.57 Another measure of the appeal of the modern was found in the cut of the students’ clothing. According to formal group portraits as well as written testimony, Jingshi daxuetang students usually dressed in the traditional silk gowns of the scholar. However, in 1902 Zhang Zhidong sent samples of the military-style student uniforms he had approved for use in Wuchang to the capital for adoption at the Imperial University. From that time the traditional gowns competed against new-style exercise clothing (caoyi) issued by the Jingshi daxuetang twice a year.58 The emphasis on physical culture was evidence of the growing enthusiasm for the military then sweeping over society, and of the extent to which university authorities were committed to rethinking the proper comportment for men of learning. Regardless of the weather conditions, the teachers’ college students got up at the crack of dawn every morning to engage in military drills. According to Yu Tongkui, he and his classmates felt smart and stylish (ganjue xinqi) in their exercise clothes: “Even though everyone still wore pigtails down their backs, by wearing short, tight-fitting clothes [we] were able to cultivate the look of soldiers, and this made [us] feel very proud.” Students enjoyed the look so much that they sought to wear their drill clothes as often as possible.59

would-be heroes and government repression Zhang Baixi did his utmost to make the Jingshi daxuetang palatable to cultural conservatives, but he acquired authority at a very sensitive moment, just when new ideas—many of them filtering in through Japan— were leading a small but growing rank of intellectuals to challenge the legitimacy of Manchu rule. Luo Dunyong, who served under Yan Fu at the university’s translation bureau, believed that this compromised Zhang Baixi in the eyes of the conservatives. “Liang Qichao was publishing Xinmin congbao in Japan to rouse the people’s spirit, and it was reverberating throughout the country, especially among the university students,” Luo wrote. “As a result, suspicious people who wanted to destroy the university [because] they viewed it as a center of revolution slandered Zhang Baixi time and again.”60 Indeed, shortly after the entrance exams were conducted, Xinmin congbao reported that Yuan Shikai had visited the university and found it to be a potential hotbed of sedition: “Viceroy Yuan was summoned to the capital several times and

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it has been learned that when he memorialized the throne he strongly attacked the university, saying that the people it has hired all support theories that uphold the rights and freedom of the people.” The following statement by Yu Tongkui reveals that conservatives had reason to believe the Jingshi daxuetang was becoming politicized: At that time we acquired our knowledge about politics surreptitiously— from fragments of writings and banned books—so naturally it wasn’t sufficient. But all the students liked to examine and discuss the successes and failures of the government, the rights and wrongs of foreign affairs, and the good and bad points of various social practices. Some of my particularly eloquent classmates liked to discuss things in the manner of delivering a lecture. Every day, when class work was finished, heated discussions took place in the northern and southern halls. There was loud yelling and a lot of effusive rhetoric. . . . There were those who leaned to the right and those who leaned to the left—all positions were represented.61

Yuan Shikai warned that banned political ideas, if they continued to be taught, would “lead to a disaster much worse than that which occurred in 1898.” He was particularly concerned about Zhang Baixi’s close associates at the university, the administrators Shen Zhaozhi and Zhao Congfan, reportedly calling Shen a rebel and Zhao a revolutionary. A short time later, both men lost their positions.62 In February 1903, a few months after a memorial was sent to the throne pointing out that every government agency other than the Jingshi daxuetang was run jointly by one Han Chinese and one Manchu, and that the university should not be an exception, Court conservatives suspicious of Zhang Baixi finally got their way. Rongqing, a Mongol bannerman and president of the Board of Punishments, was appointed as a second Director of Educational Affairs. Though he was ostensibly named as Zhang’s assistant, the appointment of Rongqing severely compromised Zhang Baixi’s authority. It also provoked an angry response from Xinmin congbao, which accused the Mongol bannerman of being an opportunistic lackey of the Empress Dowager and her conservative point man, Ronglu. Despairing for the future, the newspaper asserted that “China’s so-called Imperial University would never operate in an effective manner.” Cynically, however, it also stated that the Court would not dare close the university for fear of the criticism such a move would bring, and because it could more effectively control the institution by giving loyal officials sinecures in the Jingshi daxuetang’s administrative ranks.63 A short time later China experienced its first modern instance of sus-


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tained, nationally coordinated, student activism. In late April 1903 students across China, as well as Chinese studying abroad in Tokyo, erupted in protest over Russia’s refusal to withdraw its troops from Manchuria.64 Japanese public opinion, highly attuned to Japan’s interests in Manchuria, reacted to Russia’s aggressive actions with harsh and sustained criticism, and this in turn stirred Chinese students in Tokyo to muster a strong response. The overseas Chinese students rapidly identified resistance against Russian aggression in Manchuria as a cause around which to make a new kind of patriotic stand. They were deeply influenced by their on-the-ground experience of Japanese patriotism, and were quick to assert their right and duty to get involved. At a meeting in Tokyo attended by some five hundred Chinese, student leader Tang Erhe declared: “Those who are not afraid to die, who are willing to sacrifice their lives for China, should sign up at once to form a corps and prepare for immediate departure to join the army in the North.” Later Tang added: “We simply have been aroused by the great principles of nationhood and have sworn to give our lives to ignite the determined spirit of the people.” The following day the students sent off dozens of telegrams to China. Since so many of the Chinese activists in Japan hailed from Jiangnan, most of the telegrams went to Shanghai—in particular, to the Chinese Educational Association and the Patriotic Academy, both of which combined the goals of education and revolution making. At this time, Shanghai was emerging as a hotbed of patriotic and, increasingly, openly anti-Manchu activity; one of the most outspoken of the activists there was Cai Yuanpei, principal at the Patriotic Academy and the future chancellor of Beijing University. Cai offered his blessings when students under his charge formed a military-style Volunteer Corps modeled on the one formed by the overseas Chinese students in Japan.65 On April 30 the Japanese faculty at the Jingshi daxuetang made a show of resigning their positions to display their displeasure with the Qing government’s response to Russia’s aggression. Iwaya Magozo, dean of the college for officials, accused the students of being indifferent to the plight of their country: China’s fate hangs in the balance, yet . . . here at the university students come and go from their classes without showing the least concern. . . . If China’s hope rests with education [then] educators must cultivate a love of country among the people. Now that the country is in danger the students have absolutely no influence; compare this to Japanese students, who are enraged to the point of tears, forming unions, and showing great resolve not to let the government cede this territory to Russia. Chinese students

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The Imperial University and Late-Qing Beijing have the nature of a conquered people, and I cannot bear to teach them; I must return to Japan!66

If Iwaya’s intent was to provoke the Jingshi daxuetang community into taking action, he would have been gratified by events that soon transpired. Later that day, students from the teachers’ and officials’ colleges called a meeting to discuss the situation in Manchuria. At the meeting the students laid out a plan of action that included contacting provincial viceroys to encourage them to refuse Russia’s demands; cabling students at provincial schools to motivate them to pressure their provincial viceroys; and requesting that Zhang Baixi submit a memorial to the throne on their behalf. At the conclusion of the meeting a committee of students, most from the teachers’ college, prepared the memorial to the throne and a cable, which they sent to students in the provinces. In the memorial, they boldly asserted that they were qualified to judge China’s needs, thereby setting the stage for a fundamentally new role for students in the twentieth century.67 The country established schools to nurture loyal officials and patriotic thinking. As it now is in mortal danger, and we are not allowed to express our opinions, it is as if a house is on fire and, [though] the father and elder brother are too exhausted to extinguish it, the young and strong [are nonetheless forced] to stand by and watch. . . . There are matters that one wants to speak of but should not, but that one cannot avoid addressing. Though one oversteps the bounds of his position to speak of them, it is intolerable to sit by idly and watch as tragedy unfolds.68

Yu Tongkui and Wang Daoyuan, both of whom were among the memorial’s seventy-three signatories, later wrote that they and their fellow students had been consciously seeking to follow in the heroic tradition of their predecessors at the Imperial College (gudai Taixue) by “prostrating themselves before the palace to deliver a memorial” (fuque shangshu). The last instance of large-scale activism at the “highest school” had taken place at the end of the Northern Song dynasty, when students pressured the government to adopt a harder line against the invading Jurchens. Most of those students “ended up being reprimanded, jailed, exiled or put to death,” thereby helping to solidify their reputation for patriotic idealism and sacrifice.69 In later centuries Neo-Confucian writers celebrated the Song (and Han) dynasty students as heroes, thereby establishing a moral and historical precedent to which students in the twentieth century could appeal to justify their own patriotic activism. In 1903, therefore, the Qing government faced a delicate and chal-


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lenging situation—a large-scale, patriotic, and highly emotional student movement spreading across the country (students demonstrated in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuchang, Anqing, Guangzhou, and Nanjing, among other places) in direct violation of the state’s ban on student interference in politics. In a particularly brash case, students from the Jingshi daxuetang sent a cable to students in Hubei in which they challenged the Court’s claim to be the sole representative of Chinese interests: “The three eastern provinces belong to four hundred million Chinese people, they are not the government’s private property.”70 In making such remarks, the students surpassed the limited type of appeal made before and during the “Hundred Days’ Reform” by reformers like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, who spoke for themselves and on behalf of other literati, not in the name of the emerging Chinese nation. The actions at the Jingshi daxuetang and in other student centers caused grave consternation within the precincts of the central government. At the Imperial University chief instructor Zhang Heling posted a notice forbidding further protests. Zhang reminded the students that diplomatic relations with Russia were not within the sphere of their proper concerns (cishi fei xuesheng fennei zhi shi). He and other university administrators pleaded with student leaders to desist from their disruptive activities lest they jeopardize the very existence of the university. Here, Philip Kuhn’s remark about the “irony” of the Chinese educational system “training men to be concerned about issues which the state was determined to keep most of them out of” is highly apt. The university was founded to train students to think in new ways, but the government wanted them to do so on its own terms only.71 The student protests were patriotic in nature and for the most part did not reflect deep-seated anti-Manchu revolutionary sentiments of the sort being expressed during this period by the likes of Zhang Shizhao, the founder of the avowedly revolutionary Shanghai newspaper Guominri ribao (Chinese Daily); Zhang Taiyan, who openly called for revolution in Subao (Jiangsu Journal); or Zou Rong, who published his radical revolutionary tract, Geming jun (The Revolutionary Army), in May 1903. Zhang Baixi understood this, defending the students’ sincerity of purpose and proclaiming that he loved them like his own sons, even while seeking to persuade them to cease their protests.72 Because of the strikingly confrontational nature of the demonstrations, however, the Court refused to receive the memorial that Zhang submitted on the students’ behalf, and it refused to acknowlege the distinction between the legitimate expression of patriotic sentiment on the one hand, and plain and

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simple unruliness on the other. As far as it was concerned, students were state servants who were not entitled to air independent political views or to band together to urge a particular course of government action. Finally, the Court sent Zhang Zhidong to calm things down. In a paternalistic address to an assembly of students from the officials’ college, Zhang Zhidong did his utmost to dissuade them from interfering in political matters: “In the future when it is your business to care about larger issues, you will face a formidable array of problems, but for students the most important thing is not to damage the reputation of the university.” Zhang continued: “It was difficult to establish this school, and all of you ought to show an unquenchable desire for knowledge, so that in the future your talents and usefulness will be unlimited.”73 Zhang later urged the Court to send agents to the Jingshi daxuetang to search the dormitories and all incoming and outgoing mail for revolutionary propaganda—his great fear being that students in Beijing were forging ties with revolutionaries in Shanghai—and he also appointed an informant, one Yang Mo, as a lecturer in the history department. In addition to reporting on subversive student activities, Yang used the lecture stage as a platform from which to rail against those who supported revolutionary activities. Similar actions were taken at schools all over China. All of these actions succeeded in quieting the university to a great extent, but not before students, asserting that they were the future “masters of the country” (zhurenweng), staged a class boycott in order to pressure the administration to replace Yang Mo with a more progressive professor.74 As it did across China, the court’s crackdown at the Imperial University had the unintended consequence of making anti-Manchu firebrands out of young men who until then had not yet concluded that the dynasty itself was the problem. At least three students withdrew from the university to found militias to fight against the Russians in Manchuria: Ding Kaizhang established the Ju’e tiexuehui (Resist Russia Iron and Blood Corps); Zhang Rong the Guandong baoweijun (East of the Pass Army of Defense); and Zhu Xilin the Dongya yiyongdui (East Asian Righteous Braves Detachment).74 Other disillusioned students pursued less radical paths. One of these was Yu Tongkui, who agitated to be sent abroad for study on a government stipend. As Yu explained it several decades later: “At that time a group of radical students proposed a mass withdrawal from the university [to show that] they were not willing to be student slaves.” On the other hand, Yu went on, “some of us felt that instead of withdrawing it made more sense to maintain our good names and to use [the university] as a base . . . which could pay for a group of us to go


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abroad for study.” This way, the students could “breathe in a free environment” and “establish a revolutionary foundation.”76 The decision on the part of one camp of student activists to remain at the Imperial University only until they were sent abroad raises the question of just how viable the capital was as a locus of progressive thinking and revolutionary activity at this time. In early June 1903 Zhang Ji, one of the most radical students at the Patriotic Academy in Shanghai, published an article in Subao. He distinguished between revolutions led from the capital and those led from the provinces, arguing that revolutions whose driving energy flows from the center are easier to carry out than those that start in the provinces. Zhang explained that students in Europe’s capital cities had played a leading role in the revolutions of the nineteenth century, and expressed delight that students at the Jingshi daxuetang had brought a glimmer of light to the “dark hell” (hei’an diyu) of Beijing. Students are the motive force behind revolutions. Those in capital cities in particular have ignited revolutions from the center. This is common knowledge the world over. Students in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg rang the bell of freedom, raised the flag of independence, killed emperors, and toppled governments. The great revolutionary tide began with students. The historical stage of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries belonged to students. You students [at the Jiangshi daxuetang] will follow that path, you will illuminate the history of the twentieth century, will wipe away the shame of your forefathers, and speak boldly in the voice of the Han race. I praise you and all the country’s students applaud you.77

Coming at the beginning of a decade during which China was rocked by some five hundred student protest movements, and a century during which students played an important role in Chinese politics, Zhang’s remarks were certainly prescient. In the immediate context in which they were made, however, they represented nothing but wishful thinking. In 1905 Jingshi daxuetang students participated in the nationwide boycott on American goods that took place in retaliation for the continued implementation of anti-Chinese Exclusion Laws in the United States, but after 1903 the Imperial University never again served as a leader of student activism. Though student-led anti-Qing activism continued elsewhere, and, as Zhang Baixi noted, across the country educated youth were enthusiastically adopting modern terms like “national spirit” (guohun), “representative” (daibiao), “sacrifice” (xisheng), “organize” (zuzhi), and “movement” (yundong), the Court successfully clamped down on the troublemakers in its own backyard.78

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zhang zhidong’s reorganization and domestication of the university The protests of spring 1903 did exactly what Zhang Baixi feared they would: provide conservatives with evidence that the new schools were breeding grounds of disrespect for imperial authority. Just a few months after the revamped Imperial University had opened, the Court ordered Zhang Zhidong to work with Zhang Baixi and Rongqing to prepare a new set of regulations for it and the national school system as a whole. In addition, the Empress Dowager called on Zhang Zhidong to devise a new system to select students for study abroad and to monitor their behavior while overseas. In commissioning Zhang Zhidong the Empress Dowager sent a clear message to those on her conservative flank that she was both highly serious in her commitment to modern schools and determined to bring rebellious students to heel. Although Zhang was a longtime supporter of educational reform, an outspoken critic of the deleterious effects of the examination system on modern schools, and an advocate of increased Western learning, his conservative credentials and his loyalty to the throne were not in doubt. He had long since dissociated himself from the radical reformers of 1898 and showed as much outrage as anyone at the 1903 protests. The joint effort to devise a new set of educational regulations—predictably dominated by Zhang Zhidong—set the course for China’s schools through the remainder of the imperial period. Zhang had long been impressed by Japan’s successful implementation of conservative reforms, and in designing China’s new education charter he again borrowed extensively from the Japanese example.79 Japan’s combined emphasis on Confucian morality and modern science accorded with his objectives perfectly. By far the most significant outcome of the new regulations was the decision to gradually abolish the civil service examination system. As Benjamin Elman writes, the decision to end the centuriesold civil examination system indicated that “a social, political, and cultural nexus of classical literati values, dynastic imperial power, and elite gentry status was unraveling before everyone’s eyes.” The Qing Court had finally come to accept that the examination system’s interference with reform overrode its function as a means by which to control and harness the talents of the country’s elite.80 Nevertheless, the 1904 charter sounded many of the same cautious notes that Zhang Zhidong had laid out in his Exhortation to Learning. “In establishing schools the general principle is that schools of all classes


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will take loyalty and filial piety as the root and study of the Chinese Classics and histories as the foundation. When the minds of the students have become clear, pure and upright, Western studies may be offered to increase their knowledge and refine their skills.”81 To assure that students remained within acceptable bounds of behavior, Zhang required Imperial University students to designate an official in the capital from their home district as a sponsor (baoren) who agreed to assume responsibility for their conduct. Zhang also added a host of authoritarian rules—indeed, the revised university regulations of 1904 are remarkable for their detail and breadth. Stern warnings about the need to stay clear of political matters were communicated; students were specifically forbidden from taking jobs with newspapers, massing in groups to make demands, submitting memorials, or boycotting their classes. Those who violated these and the hundreds of other more mundane rules faced the likelihood of demerits. For violating the rules about political behavior students risked expulsion from the university.82 At the Jingshi daxuetang, as at many missionary colleges, the stress on moral education and Chinese learning was reflected in the establishment of a separate Department of Classics (Jingxue ke). Zhang Zhidong’s curriculum also called for sustained and serious study of Chinese materials in the Government and Law and Literature departments, but the texts that Chinese had for thousands of years believed to possess transcendent authority—the Book of Changes, the Book of History, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Rituals of Zhou, the Book of Rites, the Confucian Analects, the Mencius—were all to be studied through the Classics Department. This department was added to the curriculum for the regular university (fenke daxue), which was slated to open in a few years’ time. Nevertheless, the Classics still only accounted for a small portion of the curriculum, most of which focused on Western learning, since all students admitted to the university were to have received a solid foundation in Chinese learning in the lower grades.83 Like the Liang Qichao and Zhang Baixi versions, then, Zhang Zhidong’s blueprint for the university indicates a deep commitment to intellectual pluralism, to the blending of Chinese and Western learning. Borrowing from the Western model, Zhang Zhidong’s plan also called for a graduate school component (tongru yuan) at the Jingshi daxuetang. That institution was to focus on research, and therefore was rooted in a basic understanding that the boundaries of knowledge are not fixed. This is not to say that the Imperial University suddenly emerged as a training center for modern-style academic experts or that narrow, specialized

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knowledge overtook broad erudition as the most valued intellectual quality. But the provision for a graduate program did represent a significant conceptual advance in terms of the willingness it displayed to view knowledge as an ever changing, invented entity, for that way of thinking struck at the heart of the idea of immutable, divine wisdom.84 As part of his reorganization Zhang also proposed that a separate education ministry be established to supervise the empire’s schools. In 1904 this change was made, meaning that the Jingshi daxuetang was no longer responsible for the entire country’s educational policy. This arrangement left the university less powerful within the country as a whole but more independent as an institution in its own right.85 The importance of new-style schools and the influence of Western learning expanded rapidly as a result of the 1904 regulations and the abolition of the examination system in 1905. An unintended consequence, however, was that the Manchu dynasty lost control over education throughout the empire.86 As power devolved to the provinces, Han Chinese degree holders who could not find regular bureaucratic jobs assumed managerial positions in the schools that they were then loath to give up. The imperial government never regained power over education; in the waning years of the dynasty the new education ministry in Beijing was “starved for funds,” as well as “isolated, incompetent, and ill-informed.”87

the halting pace of change As he went about the process of reorganizing the national education system and the university’s place within it, Zhang Zhidong was confronted by the trying bureaucratic culture of the capital. In 1904 Hattori Unokichi, the dean of the teachers’ college, alluded to Zhang’s frustrations in a lengthy article about the Jingshi daxuetang. Beijing has been a difficult place to work . . . the bulk of the population consists of bureaucrats. . . . The only thing they care about is personal gain. . . . Chinese know that the atmosphere in Beijing is corrupt, so those in the provinces who have good will do not want to come here. Governors from the south with sound reputations, who work for society’s benefit, cannot do good work in Beijing because they have to spend all their time bowing and scraping. Zhang Zhidong came to Beijing, had that experience, and was disgusted.88

Hattori went on to say that although China’s political system was arranged so that learning and culture flowed outward to the provinces


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from the center, in point of fact the Qing dynasty had grown weak and real cultural dynamism resided in the provinces while Beijing lagged behind. Significantly, the Japanese educator identified this situation as dangerous and unstable, comparing the complacent attitudes in the Chinese imperial capital to those of French aristocrats on the eve of the great revolution of 1789. Hattori Unokichi and his allies were determined to prevail against the rot of officialdom by implementing higher and more professional standards at the Imperial University, as well as a physical education program that encouraged students to become muscular agents of modern life by distancing themselves from the effete cultural style of late-imperial Chinese officials. Educational reformers in Japan had been extolling the benefits of physical education for decades, clearly seeing a relationship between strong bodies and a strong, modern nation.89 In China, exercise courses and athletic meets had been held at schools in the provinces under Zhang Zhidong’s leadership, but these practices were slower to reach Beijing. As we have seen, students at the Jingshi daxuetang displayed an interest in military drills and some took pride in cultivating a military bearing. Following the abolition of the examination system, moreover, they began to give up traditional scholarly gowns in favor of a style of dress “that featured shorter jackets opening down the center after the Western fashion.”90 Nevertheless, for most intellectuals in the capital, physical exercise was still not viewed as an end in itself. This began to change in spring 1905, when the university staged its first-ever athletic meet (yundonghui). At the meet, students competed in events such as the tug-of-rope, the long jump, the high jump, sprints, and long-distance runs. When he announced the event, the university’s rector (zong jiandu), Zhang Hengjia, proclaimed that moral and physical education go hand in hand, and that Western countries and Japan could attribute some of their success to their understanding of this. Linkages between China’s beleaguered political condition and the supposedly lowly physical and moral state of her people were common at this time, with reformers like Liang Qichao talking about the need to forge new citizens (xinmin)—morally and physically fit people capable of survival in the modern world. As though to announce that the modern spirit had found a home in the Chinese capital, the leaders of the university invited foreign dignitaries to witness the athletic meet at the Jingshi daxuetang. At the conclusion of the event, the university treated its foreign guests to a film show, followed by a banquet and a dance at a high-class restaurant.91 In a 1906 article about a second athletic meet at the university pub-

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lished in Tianjin’s Dagong bao (L’Impartial), author Wu Wosheng praised the Qing Court for bringing an end to the examination system and for supporting military-style physical culture. Since the Imperial University’s “every development is carefully watched by people all over the country,” Wu wrote, this athletic meet is a “magnificent event.” Wu apparently was not the only one to think so. Foreign dignitaries, Chinese officials in their regalia, and thousands of others who had to stand outside for lack of space also attended the event. Among the most praiseworthy moments, according to Wu Wosheng, was when the rector of the university, Li Jiaju (who had replaced Zhang Hengjia), changed out of his scholar’s gown to participate in a footrace. Wu compared the 1906 meet with the one held in 1905, noting with satisfaction that the second meet was organized and officiated by Chinese, whereas a Japanese professor had played these roles at the first one. He also observed that there were guest participants, including female students, at the second meet but none at the first; and that there were many more spectators in 1906 than in 1905. Foreigners might speak of China as the “sick man of Asia,” wrote Wu, but if China continued to progress at this speed it would draw even with the most developed countries (yu dongxi geguo bingjia qiqu) in twenty years’ time.92 Luther Anderson, an American Ph.D. in English and history from Yale University who began teaching English at the Jingshi daxuetang in 1907, certainly agreed with Wu Wosheng that the athletic meet portended great progress for China, though he did not find the transformation as rapid and dramatic as did the newspaper chronicler. Writing in 1915, Anderson stated, “The students who came to the new schools of China had received their early training under the old-fashioned literati. They had a great veneration for their teachers and for a number of years continued to imitate their ways. They walked as if the burden of the world’s troubles were on their shoulders. They wore spectacles whether they needed them or not and tried to cultivate a cough.” Continuing in blatantly gendered language, Anderson linked China’s problems to what he took to be the feminine behavior of its leaders: “[The students’] favorite pastime was to write poetry on a fan. In 1907 when the writer entered the service of the Imperial University he was struck by the delicate appearance of the students. They had soft, pretty hands. Their long gowns and wellkept queues gave them a rather girlish appearance. They could often be seen walking hand in hand across the campus.” As far as Anderson was concerned, meaningful change did not begin until a “real” man—an Englishman—was hired in 1910 to teach physical training at the Jingshi


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daxuetang: “In a few months there was a noticible [sic] improvement in the appearance of the students. Their faces began to show the flush of health and they carried themselves like men.”93 The curricular reorganization, the abolition of the examination system, and the introduction of physical education began to bring about a changed culture at the Jingshi daxuetang. By 1906, students were joining together to speak out on the importance to China’s future of selfgovernance (zizhi) and unity (hequn) within society. That year, in an unprecedented action, students from the college for officials and the teachers’ college formed a “united association” (lianhehui) to work for those goals. They proclaimed that in coming together for a collective purpose they were modeling unity and self-governance for the entire Chinese people, and they asserted boldly that unity “is not an issue of form but of spirit, involves not a minority but the majority, is not a matter of theory but of practice, is not for one day but for the long haul.” The Jingshi daxuetang students also warned that a country whose people were not joined in common purpose could never be strong, would fail to protect its race, and would be unable to compete against ideas and armies from abroad.94 Still, the university had many critics among progressive thinkers. One was Cai Yuanpei, who briefly taught there in 1906 before leaving to pursue his own studies in Germany. Cai found the students in the capital far less inspired than those he had taught in Shanghai a few years earlier. They had no interest in scholarship, and cared only about claiming their diplomas at the end of the term. The professors were not diligent either, making copies of their lectures and circulating them among the students only to read them aloud in lecture, boring the students so much that they nodded off or flipped through unrelated books. After class the students would pile the lecture notes on their shelves, not to be looked at again until examination time.95

Cai’s views may have been shared by many people, but Chen Yixian, a student of English at the Translation College, recalled all of this very differently. He admitted that many students did not apply themselves, but Chen claimed that the workload was heavy and the examinations extremely rigorous—those who wished to do well had to prepare for three days straight with very little sleep. Contradicting Cai Yuanpei still further, Chen said that because lecture notes were not circulated it was impossible to do well if one made a habit of skipping class. For all of his emphasis on hard work and the stressful life of the student, however,

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Chen also made clear that he and his classmates did have their lighter moments, as when, every Saturday, they went together to share a meal, enjoy an opera or two, and carouse in the entertainment district outside the Qian gate.96 Chen Yixian’s insistence that he and his classmates worked hard is consistent with statements made in other memoirs about the Jingshi daxuetang, but even Chen suggests that most students were more focused on the postings they would receive after graduation than they were on the acquisition of knowledge. The examination system was now virtually defunct and the curriculum was largely oriented toward Western subject matter, but old ways of thinking certainly did not disappear overnight. Students were caught between systems and between philosophies of education, pushed to think about credentials in a traditional sense and pulled by the certainty of change in the future to appreciate the deeper meaning of the new knowledge to which they were being exposed. Little wonder that Jingshi daxuetang graduates and Chinese who graduated from Japanese schools were often referred to as “Westernstyle Hanlin scholars” (yang Hanlin), a term that neatly captured their intellectually and socially betwixt-and-between position.97 All the administrators at the university and close to half the teaching faculty possessed traditional degrees and had served as officials in the past; among such people, concern about status and rank remained pronounced.98 Students could not help but absorb the cultural assumptions and values of officialdom through the very air they breathed. Professors and administrators served the Court’s wishes by constantly reminding the students that in the near future they would be counted on to apply their learning to benefit the imperial order. The Qing Court did its utmost to set the university apart from the rest of society in order to reinforce the importance of this message and to prevent its charges from becoming infected with dangerous thought currents. In late 1905 university administrators requested that police patrol outside the university nightly, and according to Cai Yuanpei, a wooden tablet hung outside the main gate to inform people with no official business at the university that they were not permitted to enter.99 Zhang Zhidong, who became Minister of Education in 1907, was the master choreographer of these paternalistic policies. The Jingshi daxuetang students were to become proficient in modern learning and to think of themselves as important because they were soon to become officials and teachers, but while they were still undertaking their studies they were not to become proud or haughty. Student comportment became a


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key symbol through which Zhang sought to convey this message. In 1904 he had announced to the Imperial University students that they were to dress in simple uniforms, “even if they hailed from famous aristocratic families,” the point being that while they were students they needed to cultivate a properly humble attitude. But Zhang was concerned about more than neatness and simplicity; he sensed that proper distinctions between things were being lost, a point that was corroborated by Yu Tongkui, who recalled an instance when he and his classmates had gone directly from their morning military drill to the Confucian altar without changing out of their exercise clothing. Aware in retrospect of the cultural collision symbolized by this incident, Yu remarked that Confucius would have been scandalized by the students’ behavior had he been there that day.100 It was no doubt in response to this sort of incident that, in 1907, Zhang Zhidong spelled out three different dress codes for students: one for ceremonial occasions, a second for the classroom, and a third for the athletic field. Certainly, the forty students from the Jingshi daxuetang who were selected to attend the funerals for the Empress Dowager and the Emperor in late 1908 were made to understand the type of appearance and behavior that the Minister of Education expected of them on so solemn an occasion.101 According to Hu Xiansu, the study schedule forced on the students in the last years of the Manchu era was far stricter than it had been during the first few years of the century. Every day after class he and his classmates were required to sit in study hall for hours on end, even on bitter cold winter days when the single small stove in the room was unable to throw enough heat to keep them warm. The busy schedule and what Hu called “Spartan lifestyle” left little time for anything else, including, of course, political activities. The Court’s efforts to keep the university under lock and key were only partially successful, however. After the Resist Russia Movement of 1903, the Jingshi daxuetang never again became a center of anti-dynasty political activism, but political tension remained high. In winter 1907 demonstrations against the effects of unequal treaties in Jiangnan prompted Jingshi daxuetang students from Suzhou and Zhejiang to gather with co-provincials to issue a protest statement. At roughly the same time, university administrators were told to be on the lookout for students who possessed forbidden reading materials, such as Xin shiji (New Century), a journal published in Paris by Chinese anarchists. In his memoir Hu Xiansu mentions classmates who sided with the anti-Manchu forces, and the American professor Luther Anderson stated flat out that “most of the students had revolutionary

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tendencies.” Owing to the strained relations between Manchus and Han Chinese, in fact, the Court went so far as to request that Manchu students spy on their Han classmates at the university.102 Despite the increasingly tense political climate, the Jingshi daxuetang managed to make important institutional gains in the final years of the imperial era. By the end of 1904 there were over five hundred students enrolled in the teachers’ and preparatory colleges combined, and starting in 1906 increasing numbers of students were sent abroad for study, most to Japan, and a smaller number to Europe and the United States.103 The Qing Court appears to have been very clear as to the critical importance of higher education; compared with other schools, moreover, the university was well funded. In 1907, for example, whereas the Ministry of Education spent 12,000 taels on popular education, it spent some 150,000 taels on scholarships for students studying abroad and 192,000 taels on the Imperial University.104 Also in 1907, the first class of students from the teachers’ college graduated. At a banquet following the graduation ceremony Professor Lin Shu presented the graduates with a dedicatory parting statement in which he compared the occasion to the gatherings of students at the Imperial College of Han and Song times. Lin applauded the graduates for committing themselves to the teaching profession and to making China strong.105 In the new age that was dawning, in other words, intellectuals had a critically important role to play in the life of the nation. After receiving their diplomas—impressive documents bordered by images of imperial dragons and bearing the official stamp of the Empress Dowager—the students were ranked according to performance and then assigned official statuses.106All who graduated were awarded the juren degree. Eighteen graduated with highest honors and were given the rank of secretary in the Grand Secretariat; sixty graduated with honors and were given the rank of secretary in the Central Drafting Office; and twenty-one graduated at the intermediate level and were awarded the rank of staff supervisors in the General Service Offices of the Six Ministries.107 These examination degree statuses turned out to be mostly honorary, however. The graduates could not take up official postings for at least five years because they were required to work as teachers for that length of time after completing their studies. Once their teaching service was completed, they became officials-in-waiting, their appointments being made based on the class from which they graduated and the score they received on their graduation examinations. But only a small proportion of the graduates ever actually had the opportunity to take up of-


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fice. The glut of officials-in-waiting and the 1911 Revolution put that dream out of reach for most of them. Nevertheless, many Jingshi daxuetang graduates did go on to play important political roles after the collapse of the Qing dynasty.108 In 1908 the second and final class of teachers’ college and the first class of preparatory college students finished their courses as well, and in early 1909, after the graduation was postponed to mourn the deaths of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, a ceremony was held to mark the occasion. Like all official events at the Jingshi daxuetang, the graduation ceremony accentuated differences in rank and displayed a deep and abiding reverence for the code of ethics sanctioned by the reigning dynasty, as exemplified by an address by university official Yu Changlin. The national essence is the system of morality and ethics transmitted from the Duke of Zhou to Confucius and the other great sages. It has five aspects: benevolence, respect, filial piety, love, and honesty. These are what the sages considered to be the eternal and immutable principles of human relationships. . . . Chinese morality is the most exalted in the world. . . . Foreigners talk about morality, but their focus is on new theories and they lack a long tradition of ethics, so their sons know not how to be filial, and their fathers know not how to show love. We should study their strengths, but we must not abandon our own in the process.

Yu Changlin also talked about the important part that intellectuals play in upholding public morality, beseeching the students to serve as role models for a society that was losing its way.109 Yu’s address conveys a sense of urgency and the belief that a revival of Confucian social mores could return balance to the universe. As a symbol of the tenacity with which conservatives clung to their faith that morality and ritual could restore social order, it is only slightly less moving than the vision of a weak and enfeebled Zhang Zhidong paying a visit to the Imperial University to lead the faculty and students in a sacrifice before the Confucian altar just a few months before his death. Hu Xiansu, then a student, described that visit. “One day Zhang Zhidong came to the Taixue for an inspection. It happened to be the first of the month, so in view of his advanced age, it fell to him to lead the professors and students in performing a sacrifice at the Confucian altar. When he did so he was transformed,” recalled Hu. “At the time Zhang was over seventy years old and needed to be supported when he walked. He was hunched over, his face wizened like a monkey’s, and he was wearing furs. Though advanced in age, his spirit was still in abundance.”110

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the end of the imperial era The graduation of the last class from the teachers’ college in early 1909 brought an end to the Jingshi daxuetang’s normal-school function— thereafter, teacher training in the capital took place at the autonomous Higher Normal School (Gaodeng shifan xuexiao). With the closure of the teachers’ college, Hattori Unokichi and the ten other Japanese professors who had assumed so large a share of the teaching duties there returned to Japan. On the other hand, the graduation of the first class of preparatory college students created a pressing need to at last open the regular university (fenke daxue). The regular university was supposed to be up and running by the time the preparatory college graduated its first class, but financial and other difficulties postponed its opening for almost a year. Moreover, administrators had to go to extraordinary lengths to find students who were willing to study there, and were frustrated by the fact that nearly one-third of the roughly 150 graduates from the preparatory college opted to fill bureaucratic posts rather than continue with their studies. Finally, in March 1910, all the divisions at the regular university, except medicine, opened for classes; by April the enrollment had climbed to a modest 387.111 Unlike earlier administrators, most of whom earned their Jingshi dexuetang postings by their performance on the civil service examinations and their loyal service to the dynasty, the men appointed to head the various colleges that made up the regular university tended to be specialists in those academic areas or at least to have spent considerable time in Japan.112 A number of men who had been students at the Jingshi daxuetang before being sent abroad for further study were also hired to take up professorships at the regular university. Among these people were the mathematician Feng Zuxun, and the law and politics professor Yu Qichang, both of whom studied in Japan; and the physicist He Yujie, the chemist Yu Tongkui, and the law professor Lin Xinggui, all of whom studied in England. In the final years of the imperial era, then, the organizational structure of the Jingshi daxuetang was beginning to resemble that of contemporary Japanese universities. Luther Anderson, the American professor who taught at the Jingshi daxuetang, was much impressed with the progress. Speaking of the opening of the regular university, he noted the opening of new departments of “Law, Commerce, Political Science and History, Natural Sciences, Civil Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, and Agriculture.” According to Anderson, “In these departments all


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those branches are studied which would be studied in the corresponding graduate departments of any good American or European University.”113 More than any other individual, Zhang Zhidong prepared the ground for the transformation at which Anderson marveled. It was Zhang who had masterminded the reorganization of the university in 1904, and who, in 1908, had secured a grant of two million taels that permitted its further development.114 Before the reorganized Jingshi daxuetang could train any students, however, it was forced to suspend operations. News of the Wuchang Uprising brought normal life at the university to an end. Most students returned to the provinces, though some could not afford the trip home. One such person was Yao Yuanchu, a talented poet well known among his classmates because he wrote lyrics for the famous opera star Mei Lanfang. Yao Yuanchu had already cut off his queue in an act of support for the revolution, and later wrote about how he trembled in terror when the order came down to seal the city gates and kill all Han Chinese without pigtails. Ke Shaomin, who was serving as temporary rector of the university when the revolution took place, left Beijing in December 1911 in one last effort to stir up support for the dynasty (after the revolution, he remained loyal to the Qing by refusing to serve in the new Republican government). While he was away seeking to shore up the tottering political order, the university’s former rector, Liu Tingchen (later a backer of Zhang Xun and Yuan Shikai’s imperial restoration campaigns) told the students who remained that the dynasty’s forces would soon put down the uprising. However, once the students convinced Liu to honestly face up to the circumstances, the rector agreed to provide them with travel money so that they too could depart the fallen capital.115

chapter 3

Instability and Redefinition in the Wake of the 1911 Revolution

The collapse of the Qing dynasty in the fall of 1911 might reasonably have been expected to lead to the demise of the Jingshi daxuetang, given how closely the university was linked to the old regime. When the Xuantong emperor abdicated the throne on February 12, 1912, much of the Jingshi daxuetang’s raison d’être was lost. There was no longer an imperial state for its graduates to serve, and the applicability of the particular blend of Western and Chinese learning that characterized the university’s curriculum under the monarchy was thrown into doubt by the victory of the republican ideal. Nevertheless, the collapse of the dynasty in no way eliminated China’s fundamental international and domestic challenges or the need for an educated citizenry. Given that China was moving in a democratic direction and that the nation’s citizens were therefore to play an ever more active role in the shaping of their own destiny, the importance of an educated populace became that much more obvious. As a result, as Douglas Reynolds has observed about a number of other institutional products of the late-Qing reforms, the Jingshi daxuetang survived the collapse of the old political order and went on to play a critically important role in the society that followed.1 But the university’s passage through the profound and far reaching transformation brought forth by the collapse of the socio-political and intellectual order of late imperial China was anything but smooth. An institution such as the Jingshi daxuetang, so fundamentally entangled in the Qing imperial state’s effort to redefine and maintain control over 78

Redefinition in the Wake of the Revolution

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what counted as learning, naturally attracted the attention of revolutionaries who sought to redefine what learning meant and how it took place. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the university was by no means the only educational institution rocked by competing forces seeking to control how knowledge was imparted and interpreted, but in symbolic importance it could not be matched by any other institution of higher learning in China. As during the previous decade, then, for intellectuals concerned to bring modernity to China, struggles over matters cultural and intellectual at the National University were by definition understood to be of national significance. With that being the case, and because one of the fundamental questions for intellectuals in the early Republic concerned what their own role in relation to society and the state was to become under the new order, the National University naturally became a staging place for discussions and dramas centered on that subject. As before the revolution, following the collapse of the Qing dynasty, intellectuals were caught between shifting value systems. One held that it was permissible to seek prestige and glory by identifying oneself with the reigning political power, while an emerging alternative held that men of learning should stake out a more autonomous social position independent of the dictates of the state. Historians writing about modern Chinese intellectuals have paid significant attention to the historical events of 1911 and 1919 because of their obvious historical importance, but the historiography on intellectuals and the institutions through which they interacted with society during the short decade between those two dates remains quite thin. How is it that the intellectuals of the May Fourth era were able to position themselves to reassert their voices on the national stage, and what were they seeking to accomplish in doing so? To answer these questions it is necessary to seek answers in the complex and evolving political culture of the early Republic.

the promise and difficulty of reform Sun Yatsen’s appointment of Cai Yuanpei as the Republic of China’s first Minister of Education in January1912 indicated that educational policy was to change profoundly under the new political order. One of the youngest men ever to be admitted to the Hanlin Academy, Cai Yuanpei possessed the highest marks of distinction available under the imperial system. Yet following China’s defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 he had turned to modern education as a solution to China’s problems. In

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1901 Cai played a key role at a number of new-style schools located in Shanghai, and by 1903 he stood out as a major figure within the revolutionary movement. But Cai rapidly became disillusioned with revolutionary politics and in 1907, after a brief stint teaching at the translators’ college adjoining the Jingshi daxuetang, embarked on a four-and-a-halfyear study trip to Germany—an extraordinary undertaking for a man of his stature. To support himself while abroad, Cai made an agreement with Zhang Yuanji that while in Europe he would edit textbooks for the Commercial Press. Cai had served as head of the Compilation and Translation Department at that press a few years earlier, and it was Zhang who had succeeded him when he resigned in 1903.2 Cai’s decision to study in Germany owed much to the fact that statefinanced German universities represented the acme in higher education. As Edward Shils has written, “The main universities of the world at the beginning of the twentieth century bore the imprint of the idea of the university as it had been promulgated by German thinkers about a century earlier. . . . The German universities were at the height of their greatness in their intellectual achievement and in their reputation in Germany and the world.”3 Research universities based on the German model were appearing across Europe and in the United States, but German remained the dominant language of scientific publication well into the twentieth century and it was to German universities that students from all points on the globe still flocked. In the early twentieth century foreign students constituted almost 9 percent of their total enrollment. Nearly ten thousand Americans studied at German universities during the nineteenth century, and in the last decades of the century a smaller but still significant number of Japanese did the same.4 Hattori Unokichi and Iwaya Magozo, the two Japanese educators who played so large a role at the Jingshi daxuetang, both studied in Germany. Cai was also drawn to study in Germany by his strong interest in the discipline of philosophy, which held pride of place at German universities. Cai’s time at Leipzig University provided him with nothing less than the “philosophical basis for a new world view.” In particular, his exposure to the evolutionary view of history destroyed his belief in the universal relevance of Confucianism and taught him the importance of modern science. Cai was reluctant to wholly embrace a materialist view of the world, however, and was strongly drawn to Kant’s effort to reconcile materialism with the concept of a transcendent moral force in the universe. While in Germany, he translated the neo-Kantian philosopher Friedrich Paulsen’s Principles of Ethics into Chinese. Paulsen placed great empha-


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sis on morality and therefore held great appeal for Cai, who was deeply attached to Confucian moralism.5 In February1912, after taking over as Minister of Education, Cai Yuanpei published a landmark article entitled “Opinions Concerning the Direction of Education.”6 In bold terms he declared that whereas education under the monarchy had been subordinate to politics, under the Republic it had to be autonomous, beyond government control. Cai asserted that while the imperial state’s emphasis on military, utilitarian, and moral education should be retained, its stress on loyalty to the emperor and reverence for Confucius was incompatible with the spirit of republicanism.7 In place of education subordinated to politics, he called for “education for a worldview” (shijie guan jiaoyu) and “aesthetic education” (meigan zhi jiaoyu). “Education for a worldview” was intended to break the stranglehold of Confucianism by emphasizing the importance of non-Chinese philosophical traditions, as well as alternative native ones. “Aesthetic education” was to provide a substitute for the religious spirit of Confucianism by teaching students that beauty and solemnity can bridge the phenomenal world and the world of reality, thus allowing people to feel closer to the force that created the universe.8 Cai Yuanpei’s educational aims reflected his exposure in Leipzig to the German concept of bildung, which held that “true” education involved the cultivation of the whole person, the “forming of the soul.”9 The bildung ideal first began to inform the Prussian university ethos in the early nineteenth century during the tenure of the neo-humanist Minister of Education Wilhelm von Humboldt, who had a shaping influence on Berlin University. That university “was expressly organized in direct contrast to the higher schools of the military dictator. Its principle was to be not unity and subordination, but freedom and independence—the professors were to be not teaching and examining state officials but independent scholars.” Humboldt, whose ideas had tremendous influence on Cai Yuanpei, was determined to divorce education from the need to service the state, and it was in this context that the concept of bildung began to take hold at Berlin University.10 Nineteenth-century German universities developed the idea that it was as important for professors to engage in research as it was that they be good teachers. But for thinkers like Humboldt, the German concept of research, summed up by the term Wissenschaft, implied that men of true cultivation should constantly seek after new knowledge based on a general, humanistic foundation of learning, not that they should develop narrow expertise in a specialized discipline. As Charles McClelland has

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written: “Wissenschaft and further discoveries emanating from it were the instrument, not the goal, of the scholar. The full development of the personality and of a supple, wide-ranging habit of clear, original thinking was the goal.”11 The philosophy faculties at Berlin and Leipzig continued to be steeped in the bildung mentality in the early twentieth century. Thus it was that Cai absorbed a German academic ethos that had also recently reached the United States with the founding of The Johns Hopkins University in 1875.12 As Minister of Education, Cai Yuanpei immediately called for more funding for higher education and for the founding of additional national universities in Nanjing, Hankou, Guangzhou, and Chongqing.13 Cai believed Chinese universities should focus on research. To effect this change, he called for graduate schools to be founded at every national university and declared that the humanities and natural sciences constituted the core of the university curriculum. Cai maintained that the pursuit of “true” learning took place in the humanities and natural sciences, not in the practical areas of engineering, medicine, agriculture, law, or commerce. He neither disdained the applied sciences nor denied their importance, but believed that universities should cultivate men’s souls, not their practical skills. Here it seems quite clear that the educational ideas that Cai encountered in Germany reinforced the Confucian belief that education was about the refinement of the whole person, as well as the traditional Chinese conception of the intellectual as aspiring gentleman (junzi). Given Cai Yuanpei’s aims, it stands to reason that he would have been pleased by the appointment of Yan Fu as the new rector at the Jingshi daxuetang. In 1909 Yan had finally been awarded the jinshi degree he long coveted, and in February 1912, as though to signify the openmindedness of the new China, he was given the university posting many intellectuals believed he had deserved all along. Furthermore, when the university reopened on May 15, 1912 (though classes did not begin until the fall), its name had officially been changed from Jingshi daxuetang to Guoli beijing daxue, or National Beijing University, and Yan Fu was given the title “chancellor” (xiaozhang) in place of the former “rector” (zong jiandu). At the opening ceremony, Yan and Cai each spoke about the importance of the university, and Cai in particular emphasized that Beida should dedicate itself to scholarly research above all else. Following their speeches, three foreigners followed suit, including a German professor who told the students that China was now their country and


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that in the new China education had to start afresh, unhindered by old habits of mind.14 Perhaps the most dramatic sign that a new direction was in the offing was Cai and Yan’s decision to eliminate the Classics Department established by Zhang Zhidong in 1904, and to assign the study of the Confucian Classics to various other departments instead.15 As Cai later wrote, education at the Jingshi dexuetang resembled that offered at a theological school in the West, in that the Classics were treated like divine texts.16 By assigning the Book of Songs to the Department of Literature, and the Spring and Autumn Annals to the Department of History, for example, Cai and Yan inaugurated an important moment of desacralization, when the Classics began to be treated like historical works belonging to one intellectual tradition among many. Still, the abolition of the Classics Department was in no way meant to imply that the subjects that had been studied there deserved less attention. Indeed, reflecting on 1912 Beida some twenty-five years later, Cai noted with evident regret that the foreign-trained Chinese scholars who were hired to administer the university after the 1911 Revolution had little appreciation for Chinese studies and reduced their role to that of a mere ornament.17 Almost immediately, however, the promise of a fresh start for the National University was called into question. As soon as the university resumed classes, the Ministry of Finance announced a faculty pay freeze. Yan Fu protested this, insisting that professors deserved to be paid as well as the bureaucrats who filled government offices in the capital. To lower Beida’s expenses, he proposed to cut the number of courses offered, dismissed over twenty members of the staff, and volunteered to accept a pay cut of his own.18 Yan was able to maintain his family in a comfortable style at this time only because he simultaneously held appointments with and was receiving salaries from the Ministry of Education and the Navy. In early July, however, the Ministry of Education attacked this practice when Cai Yuanpei declared that several of the top academic administrators at the National University held concurrent government postings and that this compromised their ability to perform their duties at the university.19 Yan Fu now faced a challenge from Cai Yuanpei, an erstwhile intellectual ally; the pressures on him thus increased, becoming intolerable a short while later when the Ministry of Education formally called for Beida’s closure on the grounds that disagreements among government officials about the purpose of the university made it necessary to start completely anew.

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The fate of the university was thus once more caught up in the political struggles of the capital. This had already become clear in early May 1912, when the Ministry of Education declared that it and the deans of various colleges of the university, not the President of the Republic, had the right to select the university’s chancellor. Since Yuan Shikai had already tapped Yan Fu for the position, the Ministry of Education was willing to allow the decision to stand temporarily, but the Ministry’s assertion of its powers indicated the depth of the conflict occurring within the government between the cabinet and the presidency. Whereas Cai Yuanpei was loyal to Sun Yatsen, to whom he owed his cabinet position, Yan Fu’s long-standing opposition to revolution and his public support for a strong leader, and for Yuan Shikai in particular, in the wake of the Wuchang Uprising, endeared him to the executive branch. These tensions burst into the open, first, in the Ministry of Education’s call for the closure of Beijing University, and again shortly thereafter, when Cai Yuanpei and three other cabinet members submitted their resignations in solidarity with Prime Minister Tang Shaoyi, who was engaged in a fierce power struggle with the executive branch.20 Before Cai submitted his resignation, Yan Fu sent a letter to the Ministry of Education arguing forcefully against closing the university, asserting that all civilized countries had famous universities, and that China could ill afford to be different. “The financial need of one university is but a drop in the sea,” Yan pleaded, especially considering that universities uphold the national culture: When a country establishes a university, its mission is different from that of elementary, middle, and higher secondary schools. Those schools are for training students; universities also train specialists, but they also preserve noble scholarship and glorify the country’s culture. The great universities of other countries teach not only classic subjects like Greek, Latin, and Indian literature and philosophy, but many other subjects as well. No civilized country can afford not to do this.21

Yan asserted, and Cai certainly agreed, that elite studies were of great value to the nation, even though they did not lead to demonstrable gains in terms of material progress. He also contended that countries that established universities raised their international reputations by doing so, calling attention in particular to the fact that the Japanese were actively researching a wide range of Chinese intellectual traditions. In other words, Japan’s determination to become wealthy and powerful had not led it to abandon such concerns. The Japanese knew to study the history


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of great civilizations—including China’s—even if the Chinese themselves did not. In all of China, Yan Fu argued, there must be people who were interested in traditional scholarship, and even if not, China still needed to do something to keep traditional learning alive, lest it be lost forever.22 Students, too, protested the Ministry of Education’s proposal to close their school. They organized their protests by department, gathering together with their classmates to write petitions to which they then signed their names. The students pointed out that many of their number had given up promising government careers in order to pursue their studies and that they deserved a chance to earn their diplomas. Plainly, they felt anxiety about their futures in the event that the university was closed down. Their petitions were highly charged emotionally, and some students even urged Beijing University to break with the Ministry of Education altogether, to become an independent institution, a position that Yan Fu momentarily endorsed as well.23 The vehemence of the protests persuaded the Ministry of Education not to follow through on its threat to close the university. Nevertheless, the financial problems went on apace, and Yan Fu was forced to negotiate the terms of a loan with the Sino-Belgian Bank in order to secure enough money to open the university for classes in the fall of 1912. Also, for the first time, students were required to pay tuition (three silver dollars a month).24 When classes finally opened, few students were in attendance—the entire natural science department could claim only one—and in some departments the number of foreign professors was three or four times as large as the number of students.25 In letters he penned to his wife during these difficult months, Yan Fu made it plain that his patience was running out and that he no longer had the will to work hard on behalf of the university. His resolve was also sapped by a combination of asthma and an addiction to opium that extended back some twenty years—indeed, Yan requested that his wife send him sizable quantities of the drug on at least three occasions during this period.26 Exhausted and dispirited, in October 1912, after only eight months in office, Yan Fu was unceremoniously dismissed.

instability, rancor, and intellectuals as role models Officials within the Ministry of Education had been irritated with Yan Fu for some time and had even gone so far as to suggest that Cai Yuan-

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pei be named chancellor in his place.27 Yuan Shikai refused to approve Cai for the post, however; according to Jiang Weiqiao, who worked in the Ministry of Education, Yuan recognized that Cai might well use the university as a platform from which to challenge the legitimacy of his regime. To remove Cai from the picture, he ordered that money be made available to the Minister of Education so that he could return to Germany to continue his studies.28 The political potential of the chancellorship was apparent to all, and this made the choice of Yan Fu’s replacement a delicate matter. As far as Yuan Shikai was concerned, it was essential that the new chancellor be a respected intellectual who supported the president or at the very least did not threaten his position. Eventually, Yuan offered the post to thirty-one-year-old Zhang Shizhao, a one-time revolutionary who had drifted toward political moderation in the final years of the Qing dynasty. As a young man Zhang had enrolled at the Patriotic Academy founded in Shanghai by Cai Yuanpei, served as editor-in-chief of Subao, and later became involved in an assassination squad. Nevertheless, Zhang refused to join the Revolutionary Alliance when it was founded in 1905, preferring to maintain his political independence. After 1905, while a political refugee in Tokyo, he became a devoted student of Western civilization. Between 1908 and 1911 Zhang studied law, politics, and logic at the University of Edinburgh, becoming deeply enamored of Western liberalism and the English two-party system in particular.29 Following the revolution Sun Yatsen invited Zhang to return to China to serve in the new government. Zhang still refused to join the Revolutionary Alliance but did move back to Shanghai, where, with Huang Xing’s backing, he became editor of the official party newspaper, Minli bao (The People’s Stand). In that role, Zhang attracted a significant following and enjoyed a favorable reputation for his prose style, which was considered a model of logical clarity.30 However, the positions Zhang Shizhao staked out in Minli bao often contradicted those held by the Revolutionary Alliance leadership. In July 1912, for example, he went so far as to call for the dissolution of all of China’s political parties, including the Revolutionary Alliance, on the grounds that there were too many parties and that none had a coherent ideological platform.31 Zhang was bitterly attacked from all sides for this, and members of the Revolutionary Alliance questioned why a nonparty member had been put in charge of the party’s official newspaper. In the face of this criticism, he resigned from Minli bao to start up Duli zhoubao (Independence Weekly), in whose pages he continued to promote liberal ideas. In a slap at the Guomindang (the name had been


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changed from Revolutionary Alliance in August 1912), Zhang went out of his way in his manifesto for Duli zhoubao to declare that—unlike Minli bao—his newspaper was politically “impartial and evenhanded” (bupian buyi).32 Sensing an opportunity to win a high-profile intellectual to his side and to humiliate his political opponents in the process, Yuan Shikai took advantage of his personal ties with Zhang Shizhao by offering the young scholar the prestigious university post.33 Zhang Shizhao was a popular choice with many Beijing University students, but a vocal minority in the undergraduate humanities department and in the preparatory college opposed Yan Fu’s dismissal and declared that they would boycott their classes were the chancellor not retained. A heated struggle ensued between the two camps of students that at one point even led to physical violence. It is difficult to ascertain from the sources I have seen exactly why this conflict became so charged, though Yan Fu’s strong defense of the importance of the humanities undoubtedly accounts for some of the support he garnered from that corner. In addition, an article in Minli bao suggests that Yan’s popularity with the humanities and preparatory students stemmed from the fact that he, like them, believed the university should be made independent of the central government. While I have not been able to locate materials that develop this point, it is alluded to in more than one source, and it is clear that older students who had been at the university before the revolution were upset that their progress toward their degrees had been disrupted and that the central government failed to make the university a priority.34 As the situation became more charged, the Ministry of Education dissembled about the reasons for Yan Fu’s firing, demanding obedience from the students in an authoritarian tone. The university is the highest educational institution in the country, and the students’ every action should be orderly to serve as a model. The recent departure of Yan Fu stems from the fact that he was given an advisory position at the presidential palace, where his responsibilities will be great, and cannot be handled along with those of the university chancellor. The Ministry has gone to great pains to keep the university open, so you students ought to be understanding; Yan Fu’s learning is great, that is acknowledged by all, and you all adore him as you should. But when we hear that you are gathering together and arguing, even fighting amongst each other with weapons . . . then [we must conclude that] both sides [pro- and anti-Yan Fu] are extreme and in the wrong. After this warning, you should obey the rules and apply yourselves to your studies, and you ought to forgive and love one another, so as to prevent outside criticism and cultivate a respectable environment for study.35

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Despite this warning, student unrest continued unabated and affairs at the university became more chaotic, not less. Perhaps sensing that Beida was unmanageable, and no doubt aware that Yuan Shikai was using him as a pawn in his struggle with the Guomindang, Zhang Shizhao claimed that his duties in Shanghai prevented him from taking over at the university in the near future. Nevertheless, he accepted the title “Chancellor of Beijing University” and for several months referred to himself thus on occasions when it proved useful to possess such an august title.36 When it became clear that Zhang Shizhao was not going to assume the university post anytime soon, Fan Yuanlian—who took over as Minister of Education when Cai Yuanpei resigned—offered the position on a temporary basis to Ma Xiangbo. Ma was a renowned, cosmopolitan intellectual; he had studied at Le Collège St. Ignace in Shanghai and was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1870. Fluent in French, he later became interested in Western technology and became an adviser to a number of important political figures, including Li Hongzhang, who sent him to Korea. In the 1880s and 1890s Ma had traveled in the United States as Li’s secretary. He also traveled to Rome, where he had an audience with Pope Leo XIII. In 1902 Ma founded Zhendan University in Shanghai, and in 1905 he and Yan Fu established Fudan Academy, the predecessor to Fudan University. Upon learning that he was being offered the chancellorship of the National University, Ma Xiangbo requested a meeting with Yuan Shikai to explain that he was too old (he was 72) to serve as a model for the younger generation and that the atmosphere at the university was too unruly. But Yuan rejected Ma’s arguments and ultimately prevailed upon him to serve as acting chancellor until Zhang Shizhao was able to take up the position.37 In his acceptance speech, Ma Xiangbo signaled that he would have little patience for the type of unrest that had plagued the school for the past few months. His remarks reveal that the recent disturbances at the university had not all been about vaunted principles, that much of the student body remained preoccupied with the sort of intramural competition for status that had characterized life at the Jingshi daxuetang. You are university students, and university students should not concern themselves with the size of their dormitory rooms, who among them has seniority, or with the amount of money their professors are earning, but instead with morality and deep and thorough learning. When studying here you should behave and concentrate on your studies, in order to live up to your status as “university students.”38


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In emphasizing the high responsibility of university students and his belief that they should behave in a manner befitting role models, Ma Xiangbo sounded a theme that became increasingly pronounced among intellectuals in the early years of the republic. A week after his acceptance speech, Ma invited Liang Qichao to speak at the university, probably in the hope that the revered public intellectual could use his influence to steer the students in a direction that accorded with his own views of a healthy democratic society. When Liang Qichao arrived at the lecture hall, virtually all of the university’s professors and students (some of whom suggested that Liang should become chancellor) were in attendance.39 The honored speaker began by recounting his own role in the founding of the Imperial University some fifteen years earlier; he then explained that healthy universities are vital to the well-being of a nation. “A nation’s universities are the source of its civilization and its well-being; they occupy a noble place in society and have tremendous responsibility; it is impossible for me to overstate this idea!”40 Liang criticized the imperial practice of linking education with bureaucratic advancement and claimed that the old system had stunted the development of Chinese scholarship by encouraging students to view learning as a means rather than an end. Scholarship, he told them, is a sacred occupation (shensheng shiye). Moreover, since they were in the capital at the national university, the students had a special responsibility to set a positive tone for all Chinese students. Like Cai Yuanpei, Yan Fu, and Ma Xiangbo, Liang Qichao conveyed the message that universities and intellectuals had a special role to play in the life of the nation. But in making this point Liang revealed how fragile he considered the new order to be, and his belief that freedom had to be accompanied by discipline if chaos was to be averted. “If [students] do not respect the examples set by their teachers, or the restraints imposed by their chancellors, [but instead] act wildly and launch protest movements,” he stated, “then . . . their work will be worthless; my respected and beloved students will become scorned and unemployed vagrants.” He asserted that everyone in the country is entitled to speak freely except soldiers and students, who had a responsibility to the greater good of the nation. “If soldiers have free speech, not only will the army fragment and cease to be an army, it will disturb order, and nothing is more dangerous. If students have free speech, not only will their studies be wasted, but education will have no use, and the influence on society will be profound.” Liang told

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the students that democracy, in fact, required more discipline than autocracy and signaled his concern about the uncritical celebration of the idea of freedom that was sweeping through youth circles. “If, in a republic, everybody is truly to enjoy freedom, they must obey. If not, it will lead to a situation in which all people are opposed to one another and order is endangered, and then the country will no longer be a country.” Liang continued, “Under an autocracy, in which people are threatened into submission with violence, nobody questions whether they should obey. . . . But in a republic, if students are not trained to respect the rules while in school, the foundations of the country will be endangered, and the damage will be too great for words.”41 The idea that intellectuals should be moral exemplars was not new, of course, and in 1912 it was still natural for Liang Qichao to invoke Confucius when seeking to encourage a spirit of self-sacrifice. Confucius said: “The gentleman does not eat to become full, or seek great comfort in his dwelling place.”. . . Today, if China’s men of distinction were to speak of their impoverished lives as students, I believe the country’s current students would die of shame. In the past many students were willing to live in poverty, but recently a profligate lifestyle has taken over, and students will only settle for the finest foods and dwellings. . . . I am not saying that students should subdue their energy and fearlessness, both of which are precious. . . . But the expression of fearlessness should be reserved for future careers, and held in check as long as one is a student.42

Liang’s dual emphasis on research and morality repeated the message that Cai Yuanpei had conveyed when he was Minister of Education in 1912 and that he would again deliver at Beijing University to much greater acclaim four years later. However, during the first year of the republic prominent intellectuals were not in a position to control events. Across the country students were in a rebellious mood in the face of the anxiety-producing political changes that were already in evidence and the promise of further social transformation to come. They were testing the limits of their newly acquired rights; class boycotts, confrontations with teachers, and intramural conflicts disrupted school life everywhere. Often the issues had to do with the tone of authority adopted by school officials; the conflicts took on great symbolic importance and stirred up highly passionate feelings.43 Two months after Ma Xiangbo took over as acting chancellor, critics accused him of seeking to destroy Beida by selling off its property. Like Yan Fu, Ma faced serious challenges arising from the scarcity of funds allotted to the university by a central government facing financial crisis.


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Ma was forced to mortgage university property because the Ministry of Finance had yet to pay school officials money they needed in order to conduct classes the following semester. Tormenting the chancellor, students gathered outside his home to demand that he reply to their charges that he was willing to sell the university off piece by piece.44 The elderly Ma finally had enough and on December 27, 1912, submitted his resignation. Persuaded that it would also be useless for him to try to effect positive change at the university under such circumstances, Zhang Shizhao, in whose name Ma Xiangbo had been overseeing the university for the past three months, formally submitted his resignation at this time as well. Following Ma and Zhang’s departures, He Jushi, a Zhejiang native who had been the dean of the engineering department since 1907, was named chancellor—the university’s fourth in as many months.45 By this time, the republic was a year old. Twelve months earlier, as the revolution was unfolding, Luther Anderson, the young American who had taught at the Jingshi daxuetang, had become a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. In one article, he stated that China was better off now that the corrupt Manchu dynasty was on its way out, but then he pointedly asked: “But will the republican officials be better than the old?” The new officials, Anderson wrote, were “modern men,” which gave him reason to be optimistic, since he uncritically equated modernity with virtue and progress.46 In May 1912 Anderson wrote of a new species of official in “frock coat, top hat, patent leather boots, cane and all,” but said, “the difference between the old officials and the new is not merely a question of dress”; more importantly, “they think differently.”47 Anderson had a good eye for meaningful details and was very taken by the dramatic new appearance of things. In October 1912, writing about the Republic of China’s first Independence Day celebration in Beijing, he captured some of this for his readers: Triumphal arches and pylons gaily swathed in the colors of the republican flag were erected in the principal streets. In front of the palace gate a triumphal arch was erected across which was stretched a huge scroll of yellow silk having upon it in large characters the abdication edict which was issued last February. Just outside of the palace gate was placed the emperor’s sedan chair swathed in yellow silk. It was empty save for a tablet on which was written the edict that appointed Yuan Shih Kai to devise ways and means of organizing republican government. The arch bearing the abdication edict was illuminated at night by hundreds of incandescent lights48

Yet, a few long months later the promise that Anderson believed he saw on display was fading fast.

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In January 1913 another journalist, Zhang Shizhao, presented a very different picture of Beijing in an article he published in Duli zhoubao after returning to Shanghai from a several-week visit to the capital. Zhang left Beijing with a message for all Chinese intellectuals concerned about the fate of the revolution. As far as he was concerned, the debauched practices that characterized late-Qing Beijing remained highly pronounced. According to Zhang, in fact, the very people who had been sent to the capital to clean things up—Anderson’s “modern men”—were busily engaging in bribe taking, gambling, whoring, and other forms of behavior that eroded public confidence. Zhang left the capital convinced that Beijing society itself was sick and that this did not bode well for the possibility of a healthy Chinese politics.49

the preparatory college protests of may 1913 Like his immediate predecessors, Chancellor He Jushi took it upon himself to attack the anti-intellectualism and careerism that obstructed scholarly work at the university. In January 1913 the Ministry of Education identified Beida students who were simultaneously serving as government officials (two were members of the national senate, one was a secretary in the senate, three worked in the Ministry of Education itself, seven in the Ministry of Agriculture, and so on), declaring that such people had to choose either to be students or to be officials—they could no longer be both at the same time.50 Then, on May 25, 1913, He Jushi announced that preparatory college (yuke) graduates would no longer be entitled to advance automatically into the undergraduate college, as had been the practice at the Jingshi daxuetang. Instead, they would now have to pass an entrance examination. The change was intended to guarantee a higher quality among those admitted to the undergraduate college. Before announcing the new policy, He received approval from the Ministry of Education and from Hu Renyuan, the dean of the preparatory college. But students who had taken it for granted that they would advance to the undergraduate college upon completing their studies in the preparatory college felt cheated by the mid-course rule change, and their sense of outrage triggered a protracted protest movement at the National University. The issues and mood in 1913—six years before the May Fourth Movement—are revealing as to the tensions and anxieties that filled the air during the difficult transition period following the overthrow of the imperial system. The day after Chancellor He announced the rule change, aggrieved


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students plastered the campus with anonymous posters accusing him of violating official policy; on the following day, they demanded that He meet with them to respond to their worries. Chancellor He rejected the demand. Seething with anger, over one hundred students then surrounded his office and called for his resignation. At that point, according to a university report, the chancellor attempted to explain his actions but was shouted down by the students, who accused him of insulting them and of destroying the school’s reputation. He Jushi then retreated into his office and Hu Renyuan was forced to physically block the students from barging in after him. Later, He issued a statement declaring that he would go to the Ministry of Education to offer his resignation on the grounds that he had violated official regulations in making the rule change and that he had insulted the students.51 The following day, May 28, He Jushi, Hu Renyuan, and Xia Yuanli, the dean of the natural sciences department, attended a meeting at the Ministry of Education.52 Before the meeting began, Hu Renyuan proposed that the Ministry declare He Jushi permanent chancellor of Beijing University, so as to put an end to the revolving door at the chancellor’s office. This proposal was defeated, but Ministry officials made it clear that they sided with the chancellor and that his job was safe. Thereafter, He Jushi requested that the Ministry of Education summarily dismiss every student in the third- and fourth-year classes at the preparatory college. This idea too was rejected, but together the three leaders of the university and the acting Minister of Education, Dong Hongyi, decided instead to expel eight student ringleaders in hopes of quieting things down.53 But the situation only grew more explosive a few days later when He Jushi requested that armed police officers come to campus to carry out the expulsion.54 Again the students pasted up posters, this time declaring that they no longer recognized the chancellor’s authority. They then approached He Jushi’s office shouting that they had been left no choice but to resort to violence. However, at the chancellor’s office the students were met by a cordon of police officers and a pushing match ensued. When it became clear that they were effectively barred from seeing He Jushi, and that he would only accept written statements transmitted through the police, the students marched to the Ministry of Education, where they intended to demand a meeting with Dong Hongyi. Dong, too, stonewalled, however, and the students therefore announced that they would camp outside the Ministry of Education until they were given a hearing. For the last few days of May, while police moved onto the cam-

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pus, the preparatory college students held a peaceful sit-in outside the Ministry of Education. The sit-in lasted for three days before the Minister of Education asked Yuan Shikai to intervene.55 Angered by what he referred to as the students’ nonstop disruptive behavior since the dismissal of Yan Fu half a year earlier, Yuan Shikai issued a “Directive to Restore Order Through Emphasis on Moral Education,” the first in a series of decrees that promoted discipline and the revival of the Confucian curriculum.56 The president’s directive stated that moral education was as necessary under a republic as it was under an autocracy and that education was crucial to the success of the reforms initiated after the revolution. By invoking the right to “freedom and equality” whenever they insulted their teachers or broke school rules, Yuan said, the students demonstrated just how poorly they understood those concepts and exactly why it was necessary to teach obedience and respect for the law. However, coming from Yuan Shikai at a time when republican forces across the country were already incensed by his suspected role in the assassination of Song Jiaoren and by his acceptance of the Reorganization Loan without consulting parliament, this emphasis on the need to abide by the law only highlighted the president’s hypocrisy. All of this further stoked the anger of those who felt Yuan was in violation of the law and the spirit of republicanism, feeding the tension that finally exploded the following month in the “Second Revolution”—the failed attempt on the part of Guomindang politicians and military leaders to forcibly remove Yuan Shikai from office. Minli bao, the official newspaper of the Guomindang, provided plentiful and sympathetic coverage of the Beida preparatory college students’ protest movement, treating their contest with He Jushi and the Ministry of Education as though it pitted the forces of darkness against those of light. Whereas reports drawn up by university administrators and officials within the Ministry of Education portrayed the students as a rabble out of control, Minli bao made use of the conflict to step up its criticism of the central government. The newspaper laid special stress on the university administrators’ heavy reliance on military police and warned that such measures presented a grave danger to the entire country. In early June the newspaper published two letters to the nation (tonggao shu) written by the students, as well as the full text of a petition presented to both houses of parliament by close to three hundred students from the preparatory college.57 In those statements the students complained that He Jushi had violated their “rights” (quanli) by changing the rules in midstream and


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inviting the police to interfere. They invoked specific articles in the school’s regulations and in the temporary Chinese constitution guaranteeing citizens the right to petition parliament and not to have their homes entered or confiscated, and argued that it was the authorities who had failed to show respect for the law, not themselves.58 The students’ statements were remarkable for their use of the language of rights and suggest just how volatile a situation was caused by the sudden legitimacy granted to and adoption of republican political and legal concepts after the 1911 Revolution. The students’ arguments appear to have been both principled and self-serving. On the one hand, they reflected a deep concern with justice and equality before the law, a concept with which students had been familiar since before the 1911 Revolution and which they no doubt heard a great deal about in those revolutionary times. On the other hand, they recall the frequent clashes between students and university leaders over immediate institutional issues, as well as the generally anti-authoritarian stance adopted by students, during the final decade of Qing rule. A final possibility is that although the students used the lofty language of rights, they were in fact most concerned about maintaining privileges at a time when their social standing was no longer as secure as it once had been. The administrators’ insistence that they merely had the best interests of quality and order in mind was just as obviously self-serving, and showed an astonishing insensitivity to the students’ anxieties about their future positions in society. Moreover, He Jushi, Hu Renyuan, Dong Hongyi, and others were arrogant in their treatment of the students, and seem to have lacked sufficient appreciation for the importance of demonstrating that they too were bound by law, and for the heightened sensitivity to this issue at this moment in history. Indeed, the Beida protests are instructive as to the political tension that gripped China as a whole on the eve of the Second Revolution, when relatively minor conflicts such as this one took on tremendous symbolic importance. As on the national level, the two sides eyed one another suspiciously, each seeming to be confirmed in its darkest fears—the students in their fear that the authorities would trample their rights on every occasion, and the authorities in their fear that students would forever hide behind the language of rights to justify destabilizing behavior. The conflict ultimately ended the same way the Second Revolution did a month later—with the forces of order delivering a crushing defeat to those who insisted that authority too should submit to the rule of law. On June 6 the Ministry of Education closed the preparatory college and

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Chancellor He informed all 270 students that they had five days to evacuate the dormitories.59 All but the eight students who had already been expelled were told that they would be admitted back in the fall, though students who had already graduated were told that they would have to pass an entrance examination if they wished to enroll in the undergraduate college. The Ministry of Education’s summary action effectively broke the back of the demonstration, though as late as July the eight students who had been expelled were still refusing to leave their dormitory rooms and were being threatened with forcible eviction.60 He Jushi no doubt felt vindicated by this and optimistic about the chance for meaningful reform at the university at last. In the summer of 1913, while the Second Revolution rocked the country, He oversaw the selection of new students at examination sites in Beijing, Hankou, and Shanghai. The large number of students who were admitted pushed Beida’s total enrollment to 780, a 70 percent increase over the previous semester.61 Two days before Beida was set to resume classes, however, the Ministry of Education announced that Beida was to be merged into Beiyang University in Tianjin.62 Excessive costs, student unruliness, and insufficient academic achievement were cited as the reasons. As Yan Fu had done a year earlier, He Jushi personally appealed to Yuan Shikai to protect Beida. In doing so, he forcefully reiterated his commitment to order and obedience, thereby giving his tacit support to the imminent reinstatement of the Confucian cult and the growing emphasis on “loyalty, filial piety, and uprightness” in the schools.63 He Jushi was not alone in opposing the merger. Tong Hangshi, a law professor and member of parliament from Zhejiang who studied in Tokyo before the revolution, led a group of legislators in lobbying for the continued operation of the university; and the Beijing University Alumni Association, too, sent a letter to the president on behalf of the cause. The alumni pointed out that the “highest school” had been located in China’s capital since the days of Yao and Shun, and that all of the world’s great universities were located in capital cities. Incredulous, the alumni asked how the Ministry of Education could even consider merging Beijing University into so much lesser an institution in Tianjin.64 In the end, the defenders of the university won the day once more, and in October 1913 classes resumed as planned. A few weeks later, though, his relations with the Ministry of Education now sorely tested, He Jushi submitted his resignation.


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the nucleus of the new culture network When Yuan Shikai brutally and efficiently crushed the Second Revolution in the summer of 1913, those who still hoped that Beijing would emerge as a center of democratic reform were fewer than they had ever been since the revolution. The disastrous political events of 1913 marked a turning point for the Guomindang and other pro-republican political parties. Some within the Guomindang blamed the crushing of the Second Revolution on a simple failure of organization and thus sought to strengthen the party structure in preparation for a “third revolution.” Others saw the problem in more fundamental terms, believing that Yuan Shikai was able to dismantle the young republic so easily because the Chinese people suffered from an insufficient understanding of the basic spirit of democracy. The leaders of what later became known as the “New Culture Movement” identified with and emerged out of the group that held to this second, more moderate line of thinking. Those who managed to escape the bloodletting that accompanied the suppression of the Second Revolution were forced to flee for their lives. In late 1913 and early 1914 their numbers were augmented by members of the disbanded National Assembly, who found it necessary to leave Beijing after Yuan Shikai set up a ruthless spy network in the capital. Gathered together in Shanghai and especially Tokyo, the refugees were forced to reflect upon their newly marginal position in Chinese political life, as well as upon the reasons why the 1911 Revolution had failed to bring about a stable constitutional republic. Almost immediately, they began to diverge into two distinct camps. Radicals tended to align with Sun Yatsen and his newly formed Zhonghua gemingdang (Chinese Revolutionary Party), whereas moderates were more closely associated with the Discussion Group for European Affairs (Oushi yanjiuhui), so named because its members gathered together for the ostensible purpose of discussing the consequences of the outbreak of the First World War for China. The Discussion Group for European Affairs was loosely organized (it had no official leader) and included political activists and intellectuals from a variety of backgrounds. Some who took part in its activities were simultaneously members of the Chinese Revolutionary Party. Most of the participants were based in Tokyo, but several were living in more distant places, including Huang Xing—the group’s highest profile figure—who was in the United States from mid-1914.65 The Discussion Group for European Affairs sought to reinvigorate re-

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spect for the constitutional process through peaceful, educational activities. Its members favored gradual reform and hoped that by describing themselves as huanhe (moderate) they would be able to win over public opinion. Toward that end, the Group maintained close ties with the Taidong tushuju (Far East Book Company), which translated foreign works on politics, philosophy, and literature, and served as a meeting place for politically moderate intellectuals in Shanghai. Gu Zhongxiu and Ouyang Zhensheng, both of whom were members of the Group, ran the Far East Book Company, and they were also the moving force behind Zhengyi zazhi (Righteousness Magazine), which they founded in Shanghai in January 1914 as a forum in which to excoriate Yuan Shikai.66 Cai Yuanpei, Wu Zhihui, Li Shizeng, and Wang Jingwei, who were in Paris at this time and whose affiliation with the Group was looser, engaged in journalistic publishing ventures as well, though the journals with which they were involved were focused more on education than they were on politics. However, the moderate position represented by the Discussion Group was presented most cogently in the pages of Jiayin zazhi (Tiger Magazine), a monthly journal founded by Zhang Shizhao in Tokyo in May 1914.67 In his study of the social and cultural dynamics of the Chinese revolution of the 1920s, R. Keith Schoppa “envisions society as a linking and coalescence of individuals through a wide range of personal connections.” These linkages, he states, “in turn compose the social skeins and networks that are the basic components of social organizations and groupings, including structures like political parties and factions.”68 Zhang Shizhao’s Tiger Magazine served as an important hub around which intellectuals who later played a leading role in the New Culture Movement initially coalesced. It drew on existing networks and worked to tie its “members” more tightly together, especially ideologically. Shortlived though it was, Tiger Magazine was arguably the most influential political journal in China between the time Liang Qichao published Xinmin congbao (1902–1907) and the high tide of the New Culture Movement, when New Youth deserved that distinction.69 Indeed, in the mid1910s contemporaries compared Zhang Shizhao to Liang Qichao in his importance as a shaper of public opinion, and it has been shown that Zhang influenced Liang’s views on constitutionalism and other political matters.70 I have written about Tiger Magazine’s intellectual contributions elsewhere and so will treat that subject only in summary fashion here.71 The magazine’s contributors grappled with the critically important question


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of how underlying cultural values and beliefs shape politics. A key premise from which they started was that Chinese politicians on both the left and the right lacked the democratic spirit necessary for effective republican government, and that more than anything else they needed to develop an appreciation for the value of compromise (tiaohe). Tiger Magazine also was a strong advocate of Western liberalism, and at the most basic level was engaged in a reassessment of the relationship between the state and the individual. It stressed the need for representative government, mutual tolerance between opposing political parties, a strong legal system, freedom of thought and expression, the use of public opinion to limit the power of government, and the need for the state to limit its intrusions into the private lives of individuals.72 In addition, Tiger Magazine forged a new direction by emphasizing the need for greater “selfconsciousness” (zijue) of citizens’ political responsibility. Tiger Magazine provided a desperately needed dose of hope and direction to an elite intellectual community despairing equally at China’s headlong rush toward reaction and at the prospect of reversing that rush by means of a violent revolution. Its impact upon the small public capable of reading its classical prose was very great indeed. The publisher Wang Mengzou wrote in his diary that his Shanghai store overflowed with customers seeking to buy single issues and entire sets of the magazine, and the celebrated political reporter Huang Yuanyong was unreserved in his praise for Zhang Shizhao, writing that Zhang was a “great reformer” who, alone among those writing about Chinese politics, understood what needed to be done. According to the intellectual historian Chang Naide, at a time when politically conscious intellectuals were deeply depressed and unsure of what to do next, Zhang Shizhao’s journal “put forth consistent and idealistic views, and moreover used highly rigorous reasoning to do so.” Chang Naide calls Tiger Magazine nothing less than the “life-saving medicine of the age” and a harbinger of the New Culture Movement.73 In late 1915, shortly after Yuan Shikai issued a warrant for his arrest, Zhang Shizhao halted Tiger Magazine and threw himself into organizing work for the National Protection Army.74 He returned to China to become secretary for Marshal Cen Chunxuan, a member of the Discussion Group for European Affairs whom he had served in a similar capacity during the Second Revolution. A few months before Zhang returned to China, Chen Duxiu, one of Zhang’s chief assistants at Tiger Magazine, had gone back to Shanghai. Chen’s goal was to address himself to the “awakening” of a new constituency through a periodical of his own entitled Youth Magazine (Qingnian zazhi).

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Chen Duxiu never adopted the formal, academic style favored by Zhang Shizhao, Gao Yihan, and others who wrote for Tiger Magazine, and in Youth Magazine he was able to feature his own more passionate and polemical prose. Still, the immediacy of Youth Magazine’s impact on the Chinese intellectual and political world should not be overstated. Though it would later become far more influential than Tiger Magazine had ever been, at this stage Youth Magazine was a small-scale operation, its circulation of no more than one thousand copies per issue being limited effectively to a regional, Shanghai-based audience. Wang Mengzou, the Shanghai publisher who printed and distributed both Zhang Shizhao and Chen Duxiu’s journals, recalled that even after Chen changed Youth Magazine’s name to New Youth (Xin qingnian) in September 1916 his journal still was not as well known as Tiger Magazine.75 In fact, it is impossible to understand the origins of Youth Magazine if its numerous and important connections to Tiger Magazine are not established. In the early going, Chen’s journal was kept on its feet by a dedicated group of young writers who had previously been associated with Tiger Magazine. The continuity in personnel between the two magazines is striking. A list of people with ties to both reveals an intellectual network that constitutes a veritable who’s who of the New Culture Movement. Among those who published in early issues of Youth Magazine after having previously written for Tiger Magazine were Gao Yihan, Yi Baisha, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Yang Changji, Cheng Yansheng, Wu Yu, Wu Zhihui, Su Manshu, Xie Wuliang, and Liu Wendian. Thus it is not surprising that there was significant thematic continuity between the two journals as well. The liberal ideas that constituted the foundational thinking of Tiger Magazine, especially the concern for the rights of the individual as against those of the state and the belief in the need for greater citizen self-consciousness, were also foundational for Youth Magazine. Chen Duxiu’s journal concentrated more incisively than Tiger Magazine on the relationship between culture and politics, but Tiger Magazine’s lucid discussion of republican first principles and the “spirit of politics” helped point the way to the subject of culture.

continuity and change at national beijing university, 1914–1916 During the peak period of the Yuan Shikai dictatorship, while intellectuals outside China or in legally protected pockets within the country were pushing thought about politics and culture in these new directions,


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things in the capital were generally much more subdued. The momentous political changes unleashed by the revolution had slowed to a crawl; in 1914, nearly half the men in Beijing still wore queues, and in the center of the city, the former Manchu district where Beijing University was located, over 90 percent of the men did so.76 At Beijing University the preparatory college protests of 1913 had dribbled off to next to nothing. This period of calm, in fact, provided the next chancellor, Hu Renyuan— the former dean of the preparatory college—a relatively stable period in which to build up the institution. Between July 1913 and July 1916 Beida’s budget grew from just over three million yuan to nearly four and a half million yuan annually.77 The student body also grew rapidly, nearly doubling between the spring of 1913 and the fall of 1914.78 By the end of 1914, there were some nine hundred students enrolled in the undergraduate and preparatory colleges combined. Two years later, that number had grown to over fifteen hundred, and it would have been higher still if the university could have accommodated more students, since the number who applied each year was four to five times the number accepted.79 So many students were enrolled that they were forced to live several to a room in the dormitories, separated by bed sheets rigged to serve as walls to afford a modicum of privacy. The student body rapidly outgrew the university’s dormitory space, so that during these years many students were forced to find housing in apartments located in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus. As was true before 1911, most of the students who entered Beida in 1913 and 1914 hailed from coastal provinces. Of the 423 students attending the undergraduate college in late 1914, 213 hailed from the four southern provinces of Guangdong (78), Zhejiang (71), Jiangsu (44), and Fujian (20). If the northern coastal provinces of Shandong (43) and Zhili (37) are added in, nearly 70 percent of the student body is accounted for.80 Like students at the Jingshi daxuetang, those who enrolled at Beida in the early years of the Republic tended to come from privileged backgrounds. According to Gu Jiegang, who entered Beida’s preparatory college in 1913, many of his classmates were the sons of bureaucrats or wealthy landlords. “Some students spent five thousand silver dollars in a single year,” Gu wrote. “Of course, such sons of millionaires were not many, perhaps numbering only two or three. But those who could spend up to one thousand silver dollars a year were more numerous, numbering in the several tens at least. A person like myself, who only got two or three hundred silver dollars from home per year, was considered poor, and had no status at all.”81 Gu may have felt poor relative to his class-

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mates—including one from the humanities division who was delivered to class in a private rickshaw outfitted with bells and electric lights—but he came from a scholarly family and had enough spare cash to attend the theater regularly during his student years. Likewise, Fu Sinian, who came from a lower-middle-class family, could easily afford to take his meals at restaurants and once a week purchased sizable portions of meat at the Dong’an Market (Dong’an shichang) close to the university. Tao Xisheng, another student, recalled that life was very inexpensive at this time and that Beida students could cover all of their expenses for a year with 150 dollars. Students had to pay between twenty and thirty yuan per year in tuition, depending on whether they were enrolled in the preparatory or the undergraduate college, and to live in the dormitories cost one yuan per month. Considering that a family of five could survive on an income of one hundred dollars a year in Beijing at this time, Gu Jiegang’s annual budget of two to three hundred silver dollars certainly cannot be seen as cause for pity. Truly poor families could not dream of sending their sons to Beijing University.82 Not only were scions of wealthy and powerful families well represented at the highest school in the early Republican period, the university also continued to be dominated by the careerist mentality that had characterized the Imperial University. As Cai Yuanpei explained disapprovingly, the majority of students wanted above all to become officials: “If a professor was strict about taking roll, or in grading examinations, [students] . . . would not think twice about boycotting his class. But if a man with stature in the government came to lecture, even if he constantly excused himself from his duties, [the students] would still welcome him enthusiastically, since they hoped he would help them find work after graduation.”83 Making much the same point about the students’ careerist mentality, Gu Jiegang wrote: Students practiced the corrupt habit of “forming brotherhoods of ten” (jieshi xiongdi). What was a “brotherhood of ten”? It was when ten students swore to treat one another like brothers, such that after graduation, when they were all busy currying favor, the one who landed the highest office would hire the others on as his section chiefs and secretaries, in order that they could all enjoy the fruits together. If the one who received the official post purchased it from a warlord or a senior bureaucrat, the cost of the office was shared ten ways.84

The “brotherhoods of ten” fostered important social bonds among their members and represented a practical strategy for securing one’s social standing at a time of rapid societal transformation. The majority of


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Beida’s students were enrolled in the department of law, a feeder for the national and provincial bureaucracies. Of the 423 students officially enrolled in the undergraduate college in late 1914, 213 were enrolled in the law department—which equaled the number of students enrolled in all the other departments combined.85 Enrollment in the law division (wherein one studied economics and politics in addition to law) did not necessarily imply that a student was uninterested in scholarship, but in practice it was difficult to maintain a serious commitment to scholarship while worrying about finding a bureaucratic position.86 In 1915, when Feng Youlan told the official in charge of his entrance examination that he wanted to enroll in the humanities department, he provoked nothing but incredulity. The official asked him why he did not enroll in the law department, given that he already had a diploma from a preparatory college and that his odds of having an official career would be much greater if he did so. When Feng persisted in his original position, the official advised him to enroll first in the law department and to switch later if he still wanted to study humanities, since it would be more difficult to transfer from the humanities to the law department. Feng followed this advice and enrolled in the law department.87 He eventually found his way into the humanities department, of course, but Feng was among a small minority of students at the National University who pursued academics for its own sake during the Yuan Shikai era. And while there certainly were professors who took pride in their scholarship, the majority were content to bide their time until their next bureaucratic appointment, at which point they happily abandoned their teaching duties.88 The shift to a bureaucratic posting probably required little reorientation, since most professors were already accustomed to the perquisites of power and prestige. Shen Yinmo recalled a colleague who arranged for a servant to deliver a pot of tea and a water pipe to him during his lectures and to clear away his dishes when the lecture was concluded.89 Fulltime professors already earned very generous salaries (those in the undergraduate college earned between 180 and 280 silver dollars a month) and were accustomed to lavish banquets and gambling expeditions.90 Moreover, so many professors and students frequented brothels that prostitutes in the “eight big alleyways” (bada hutong) prostitution district outside the city’s southern wall said the “two assemblies and one academy” (liangyuan yitang)—namely, the Senate, the House, and the university—supplied them with their best customers.91 Students spent a great deal of time away from Beida, often had noth-

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ing to do with one another, and developed little sense of mutual respect; whenever they had complaints about one another, they wrote their criticisms on placards which they pasted on the walls anonymously.92 Nor did they show much kindness to those who worked for them. A reporter writing for Shibao (The Eastern Times) in spring 1915, for instance, described with horror the way students threw their dishes and cursed at the chefs in the cafeteria if the food did not meet their expectations; and the way they refused to pay their bills for months at a time, thus forcing the chefs to appeal to Beida officials to rectify the situation. The reporter was even more astonished that the students accused the university of “interfering with their right to eat” (ganshe chifan zhi quan) when Beida officials prevailed upon them to clear their debts.93 Chancellor Hu Renyuan was aware that the atmosphere at the National University more closely resembled that of a yamen than it did a modern institution of higher learning. In fall 1914 he proposed a series of reforms, calling for the hiring of more professors to meet the needs of the growing student body, tougher standards on written work and examinations, reorganization of the library, creation of a lounge where students could purchase Chinese and foreign journals and newspapers, and tougher punishments for those who violated university rules. Like his immediate predecessors, Hu spoke of the need to develop respect for scholarship and of the relationship between universities and national glory. “Europe’s ability . . . to explain new principles and invent new machines that are used all over the world is due to its universities. Thus the extent to which a country’s universities are developed is directly related to that country’s strength or weakness,” Hu said. “In Europe and the United States professors are held in especially high esteem,” but “in China,” Hu lamented, “it is different because the social psychology is inclined more in the direction of officialdom, and most professors only become so in order that they can advance to the status of officials. . . . The country must treat its teachers better if it wants to encourage respect for scholarship.”94 To build a first-rate faculty, Hu proposed, China, like Japan, should send its professors to Europe and the United States on a rotating basis so they could familiarize themselves with the latest knowledge in their fields. Indeed, Hu Renyuan and the dean of the preparatory college, Xu Chongqin, who earned a master’s degree in law and politics from Yale University, tried in more ways than one to Westernize Beijing University. They hired new foreign professors and made sure that the majority of the Chinese faculty had received training abroad. Of the fifty-three faculty


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members in the undergraduate college in late 1914, ten were foreigners and twenty-nine others had been abroad for study; of the thirty-eight professors in the preparatory college, seven were foreigners and twentyone others had studied abroad.95 Because of the large foreign presence and Xu Chongqin’s strong emphasis on foreign languages, Beida, and the preparatory college in particular, had something of a colonial air about them; English and German were commonly spoken in the faculty lounge, or during faculty meetings, and Chinese was pushed to the side. Faculty members who did not know these foreign languages found themselves quite isolated. Shen Yinmo, who taught Chinese history and literature and who belonged to the minority who resisted the pressure to speak English or German, recalled with ironic amusement an occasion when Xu Chongqin began a sentence by stating, “We Westerners . . .”; and Chen Hanzhang, who taught classics and history, once told his student Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun) that it was necessary to overcome the inferiority complex that Chancellor Hu Renyuan and others exhibited in relation to the West so as to develop pride in Chinese culture.96 Given that so many professors in the preparatory college lectured in English or assigned heavy reading loads in foreign languages, it is not surprising that some people took offense.97 As Yeh has written, critics of the heavy emphasis on foreign languages were scornful that students were required to purchase expensive books imported from the West. Such people pointed out that “these outlays amounted to a form of ‘tributary gold’ paid to the West by China’s educated elite.”98 Furthermore, it must have been difficult for students to avoid feelings of inadequacy in the face of all that foreign-language teaching. Yang Lianggong, who enrolled in the preparatory college in 1915, recalled being taught Western history and oratory by an Englishman who required his students not only to memorize entire speeches, but also to deliver them with appropriate hand and facial gestures. Likewise, another student, Chen Guyuan, wrote about the difficulty he had in coping with foreign teachers who spoke only their native languages. Sometimes, however, students preferred that their professors speak English: Mao Dun recalled a foreign professor who insisted on teaching his lessons on Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe in a Beijing dialect so garbled that the students requested he revert to his native English so they could understand him.99 Yang Lianggong complained about the difficulty of his classes, but he also indicates that the rigor of his preparatory college training prepared him well for the undergraduate college. Indeed, the demanding nature of the training offered by the preparatory college was a point of pride to its

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dean, Xu Chongqin, who used his own money to purchase a gold medal with which to honor the student who displayed the strongest combination of academic and moral excellence (Fu Sinian was the first student to win the medal). Xu was among the first administrators to encourage academically oriented extracurricular activities, such as a music society, a drama club, and a public speaking group, and under his watch students (led by Fu Sinian) launched the journal Quanxue (Encourage Learning), for which Yan Fu penned the title characters. Most of the journal’s articles were written in foreign languages. According to Tao Xisheng, in these years the preparatory college students tended to look down on the undergraduate college students for leading such carefree lives. The cleavages between students who were attached to their water pipes, frequented the brothel quarters, and amused themselves by writing about their favorite actors for the tabloids, and younger students who were attracted to the more disciplined culture of learning propounded by Western-trained reformers grew more pronounced with each new class that entered the university in the 1910s.100 But life in the preparatory college was not all work. No sooner does Tao Xisheng sneer at the undergraduate college students for leading such relaxed lives than he describes the frequent trips that he and his classmates from the preparatory college made to the Dong’an Market.101 The students would go there in small groups to wander through the merchant stalls in their long gowns and to sit about in their favorite teahouses playing chess for hours at a time. Gu Jiegang, a self-described “opera fanatic” while a student in the preparatory college, would peruse the handbills posted at the market to find out which operas were playing and then slip away to enjoy the shows of his choosing.102 In fact, opera going was so popular among preparatory college students that they developed fan clubs and regularly stayed up late into the night to compare notes on the latest shows and to sing their favorite arias.103 In other words, even serious-minded students committed to the study of foreign languages and “modern” disciplines had one foot planted firmly in the cultural practices that had long characterized intellectual life in the Chinese capital. Modern and traditional mindsets coexisted; it was not a case of the former simply eclipsing the latter.

the emergence of a dominant, new academic lineage Still, administrators such as Hu Renyuan and Xu Chongqin did set important wheels of change in motion. The emphasis on Western languages


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and culture clearly had an impact, but the most fundamental shift at this time occurred within the faculty in the undergraduate college that specialized in traditional Chinese academic subjects, such as philosophy, history, and literature. Between 1913 and 1915 the brightest young disciples of the eminent Han Learning scholar Zhang Taiyan were hired to teach at Beida. As with the master himself, their stature was heightened as a result of their acquaintance with Western ideas, but they too were motivated foremost by a desire to renew the Chinese academic tradition, to recover the “national essence” (guocui). For Zhang Taiyan, the search for the national essence led to the open-ended study and celebration of the pre-Qin noncanonical philosophers as well as the writings of the WeiJin period and Buddhism.104 Significantly, it was He Jushi, Hu Renyuan, and Xia Yuanli, all from Zhejiang, and all trained abroad in natural or applied science, who recruited Zhang Taiyan’s disciples to teach in the humanities department. As we have seen, the humanities fields at the university had been dominated by scholars steeped in the Tongcheng literary tradition from 1902, the year Wu Rulun was named dean of faculty. Nor did this change immediately after the revolution, since the first chancellor, Yan Fu, named Wu’s disciple Yao Yonggai to the top position in the humanities division. Between 1912 and late 1913 Yao was the most powerful figure in that division, and Lin Shu, who had close ties to the Tongcheng scholars, was another of Beida’s luminaries. Yao Yonggai’s brother Yao Yongpu was also at Beida at this time; and Chen Yan, one of the most influential poets and critics of his day, though a critic of Lin Shu and the Tongcheng School, was a strong promoter of the movement to imitate Song-dynasty poetry and was associated with the university’s old guard.105 Given that Zhang Taiyan was a fierce critic of the Tongcheng School and of Lin Shu’s translations of Western literature in particular, and that he was a leading revolutionary, his disciples—virtually all of whom had also supported the revolution—could have gotten positions at the National University only through the good graces of those who did not have a proTongcheng bias. The influx of the new cohort began under He Jushi, who was a great admirer of his co-provincial Zhang Taiyan and on the lookout for opportunities to staff the university with others from Zhejiang.106 In addition to scholarly lineages, then, Zhejiangese native-place connections also proved highly important in the reshaping of the university. In summer 1914 Hu Renyuan named Xia Yiqi dean of humanities in place of Yao Yonggai (who had retired in November 1913), and it was then that

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the tide positively shifted.107 Xia Yiqi was a graduate of the humanities department at Tokyo University and served as chancellor of Beijing Normal University before becoming dean of humanities at the National University. Along with He Jushi, Hu Renyuan, and Xia Yuanli, as well as the acting Minister of Education, Dong Hongyi, and the chancellor of the newly created National Beijing Medical College, Tang Erhe, Xia Yiqi thus belonged to the nexus of Zhejiangese scholars that dominated the academic scene in Beijing at this time. Those men provided Zhang Taiyan’s disciples, almost all of whom were also from Zhejiang and had spent time studying in Japan, with their first academic posts in the capital. Looking for opportunities, Zhang Taiyan disciples Ma Youyu, Zhu Xizu, Xu Shouchang, and Shen Yinmo stayed on in Beijing after attending a conference on the standardization of spoken Chinese sponsored by the Ministry of Education in February 1913. Over the next few years all of them, as well as Shen Yinmo’s younger brother, Shen Jianshi, Qian Xuantong, and Huang Kan, the most outstanding scholar among Zhang’s disciples and one of the few not from Zhejiang, were hired to teach at Beijing University. Zhu Xizu, whose Zhejiang accent was so heavy that many students from northern China could not understand him, also invited fellow Zhang disciple Zhou Zuoren to teach at Beida in 1914, but Zhou declined the offer.108 Ma Xulun, a philosopher who had long-standing ties to Zhang Taiyan and Tang Erhe, was also hired at this time, as were the philosopher Chen Daqi, a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University, and the social scientist Tao Menghe, who had studied in Japan before going to England to study economics at London University. Chen and Tao were both Zhejiangese, but neither was a Zhang Taiyan disciple. Shen Yinmo was the first of Zhang’s disciples hired to teach at the National University. The day after he arrived in winter 1913, Hu Renyuan told him that the dean of the natural sciences department, Xia Yuanli, had been busy telling people that things would improve now that a thirty-year-old disciple of Zhang Taiyan was on campus.109 Hu’s comments made it clear that a struggle between traditionalist Tongcheng scholars, who opposed the revolution and believed in the divinity of the Classics, and Zhang Taiyan’s disciples, who supported the revolution and did not believe the Classics were divine texts, had begun. The Zhang disciples’ philological rigor, as well as their openness to all literary styles and to the full sweep of the Chinese intellectual heritage, permitted them to explore aspects of the Chinese past that the Tongcheng scholars, beholden as they were to a particular, narrow style of writing, could not.110


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Their exposure to “modern learning” in Japan enabled them to position themselves as the intellectual vanguard, to argue forcefully that though the Classics made up a particularly significant piece of the national learning, they did not possess transcendent spiritual meaning. On the other hand, men such as the brothers Yao and Lin Shu, the latter of whom spoke to his students about novels and regaled them with martial arts stories, feared that young minds exposed exclusively to the Han Learning approach would lose their feel for China’s ancient culture. Acknowledging that the Tongcheng style would never again be widely popular, Lin Shu maintained that it merited study as a form of art and pointed out that in the West scholars still studied Latin and that the Japanese retained their interest in traditional culture. By all accounts, the scholars associated with the Tongcheng tradition conveyed a sense of their own deep love for literature to their students, but they did not subject it to the rigorous modern-style analysis practiced by Zhang Taiyan’s students.111 Not surprisingly, as Zhang’s disciples succeeded in attracting the best students and in establishing a reputation for scholarly rigor unheard of before their arrival, the Tongcheng scholars became uncomfortable. By 1915, most of them had left Beida.112 Talented students such as Fu Sinian, Mao Zishui, Tao Xisheng, Gu Jiegang, and Feng Youlan had great respect for Zhang Taiyan and for the new professors. Gu Jiegang recalled that hearing Zhang lecture in Beijing in the winter of 1913 woke him from his lack of interest in academics.113 Of Zhang’s disciples, Huang Kan was particularly revered as a scholar, though he was rather more arrogant than the others, some of whose work, especially Qian Xuantong’s, he criticized mercilessly in front of students. As this suggests, Zhang Taiyan’s disciples were divided by internal rivalries of their own. For example, Huang Kan was more of a cultural conservative than most of the others—so much so that he was saddled with the sobriquet “everything other than the eight books is nothing but a dog’s fart” (babu shu yiwai jie goupi).114 Such rivalries notwithstanding, Zhang’s disciples managed to instill a greater sense of intellectual adventurousness among the students. Moreover, since they were so young (most were in their thirties at this time) and familiar with Western-style education, they tended to be less formal in their relations with students. Shen Yinmo, for instance, was astonished to learn that the older professors did not lend their books out for fear that they would no longer have anything to say that the students could not learn for themselves. Not only were Zhang’s disciples less protective of their sources of knowledge, they were also less possessive of students. Qian Xuantong’s

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encouragement that students seek out guidance from other professors and his habit of addressing students he knew well as “brother” (xiong) struck his student Wei Jiangong as a fresh and welcome change.115 Like their Tongcheng predecessors, Zhang Taiyan’s disciples possessed a strong sense of group identity, which they developed while studying with their master in Tokyo in 1908 and 1909. In some cases, their bonds preceded their relationship with Zhang Taiyan, and the fact that most of them hailed from Zhejiang surely heightened their sense of solidarity. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that the intimate atmosphere of Zhang’s private classes did more than anything else to encourage their sense of camaraderie, or that Zhang’s informality and openness influenced their own teaching styles. Xu Shouchang later recalled Zhang’s class in Tokyo: Every Sunday morning we went to Zhang’s cramped apartment for a lesson; all of us, including the teacher, sat on the floor around a low-lying table. The master would read a short passage from the Shuowen jiezi or the Erya yishu and then scrutinize its meaning with great enthusiasm, moving from one character to the next, chattering on about the origins of this word or that, or about evidence derived from the dialects from various regions. He would carry on this way from eight until noon without rest, a truly tireless teacher. . . . Because Mr. Zhang’s classes were so lively, many new friendships were formed, and they were very comfortable, since we would often talk casually, joke about, and make puns. . . . The group consisted of eight people—Zhu Zonglai, Gong Weisheng, Qian Xuantong, Zhu Xizu, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Qian Jiazhi and myself.116

Recollecting the same scene, Zhou Zuoren wrote: “Mr. Taiyan was short-tempered with wealthy types, but he was very good to students, talking and laughing freely, as if [we] were members of his family or personal friends.” Zhou recalled that Zhang treated his students like disciples (mensheng) and conveyed a sense of dignity: “In the summer he would sit on the floor cross-legged. With bare arms sticking out of his long vest, and his wispy little mustache, he would talk about books with a combination of joyousness and seriousness that put you in mind of the black Buddha sitting in his temple.”117

blending scholarly and political commitments Zhang Taiyan’s academic interests and personal style had a profound impact on his disciples and on the culture of Beijing University. Most of his disciples were as attracted by their master’s fiery politics as they were by


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his deep learning. For Zhang, being a scholar did not mean adopting a retiring attitude, and in fact one of the key messages he conveyed was that intellectuals had a duty to marry their academic research to their political commitments. Shen Jianshi and Huang Kan were both actively involved in revolutionary politics when they met Zhang, and Huang Kan wrote anti-Manchu articles that Zhang published in Minbao. Qian Xuantong viewed the master as both a political and an intellectual mentor. “In fall 1906, when I went to Japan to study, Mr. Taiyan had just gotten out of Shanghai’s western prison and come to Tokyo to take over Minbao,” Qian wrote. “At that time I totally worshipped Mr. Taiyan and considered him to be our role model. As far as I was concerned, his comments [about politics] were indisputably correct and required absolutely no revisions from others.”118 Lu Xun, too, admitted that he was attracted to Zhang for political reasons: “Originally I went to hear him lecture . . . because he was a learned revolutionary, and even now [1936] I can recall the master’s expressions, but not a single word he said about the Shuowen jiezi.”119 The years immediately after he was released from prison were among Zhang’s most radical, and no Chinese student in Tokyo could have been unaware of his leading role with Minbao. Zhang’s message went far beyond a simple advocacy of anti-Manchuism; he also demanded unflinching moral righteousness from those with whom he associated, and a commitment to sacrifice everything, even one’s sanity, for the revolutionary cause: Generally, human beings never admit that they themselves are mad. . . . I alone confess that I am mad, that I suffer from a nervous disorder. What’s more, when I hear it said that I am mad or nervous, I become elated. Why is that so? Ordinarily, it is neurotic people who arrive at “profound thoughts that transcend common knowledge,” and having hit upon such thoughts, they do not attempt to verbalize them. Even if they do speak up, only neurotic people can achieve a deep, unflinching faith when they confront privation and hardship. Thus ever since antiquity, men who amassed great learning and accomplished great deeds were able to do so, in the first instance, because they were neurotic. . . . I admit to being a neurotic, and I hope that each of you harbors a bit of neurosis as well.120

It is significant that Zhang defined the revolutionary hero in much the same way that he described the true scholar—as one who is uninterested in wealth or status and wholly selfless in the pursuit of his goal. For Zhang, nonconformity was itself a likely sign of moral strength and conviction. In both his politics and his scholarship he was a purist, and there

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can be little doubt that the lessons he imparted to his disciples had as much to do with being passionate—even to the point of arrogance— about one’s calling as they did with the Shuowen jiezi. Nor was Zhang Taiyan’s uncompromising spirit in any way diminished by the success of the revolution. Between fall 1913 and Yuan Shikai’s death in summer 1916—the very years when his disciples were beginning to make their presence felt at Beida—the master himself was under house arrest in the capital for his outspoken criticism of Yuan Shikai.121 Just as they could not ignore the political side of their mentor’s personality when they were all together in Tokyo, neither could Zhang’s disciples do so in 1914 and 1915. During the three years that Zhang was under house arrest, virtually the only people who were permitted to visit him were his disciples. Ma Xulun and Huang Kan each visited Zhang on a number of occasions, as did Lu Xun, Qian Xuantong, and Zhu Xizu. Even in his captive state, Zhang managed to communicate the strength of his resolve. For example, in 1915 he told Qian Xuantong to “strike out boldly to break free of traps, burn down the thistles and thorns, and wash away the polluted swamps.” Zhang made the same point more directly when he said that he would sooner die than compromise with Yuan Shikai.122 Zhang Taiyan’s unflinching opposition to Yuan Shikai presented a stark contrast to the toadying behavior of other prominent intellectuals and set an example for his disciples to follow. Before long they were given the opportunity to prove their mettle, when Yuan Shikai made a concerted effort to garner support for his imperial restoration attempt from the faculty at Beijing University. In 1913 and 1914 the American political scientist from Columbia University who would soon be named president of Johns Hopkins University, Frank Goodnow, was invited to deliver a series of lectures at Beida on constitutional government; within a year, Goodnow’s lectures were being used to justify the president’s monarchical bid.123 As Yuan Shikai’s plan gained momentum, the president bestowed high imperial honors on a number of professors in an attempt to win them to his side. In addition, Yuan’s oldest son dispatched a messenger to persuade Hu Renyuan to rally Beida behind the wouldbe emperor.124 On the whole, however, Beijing University managed to keep its distance from Yuan Shikai. This was in no small part due to the new spirit of independence communicated by Zhang Taiyan’s disciples. Zhu Xizu, who was by then the chairman of the Literature Department, resigned one of his positions to protest Yuan’s activities, and Huang Kan refused


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Yuan’s offer of money on the grounds that his services could not be bought like those of “a prostitute.”125 Ma Xulun made the most dramatic expression of dissent by a Zhang disciple. Declaring that he could no longer reside in the capital if Yuan Shikai insisted on carrying out his monarchical scheme, he resigned from the Beijing University faculty. Before he returned to Hangzhou, Ma’s students composed poems to express their admiration for his resolve. Deeply moved, Ma wrote a short note of thanks, replete with references to the Confucian Classics: As I will live the life of a recluse, I shall prepare my bags calmly. Some friends of mine at the Taixue want to console me on the eve of my departure. . . . Although we will be separated for some time, our faces will always be before one another . . . my benevolence and righteousness are meager, but I have self-respect, and the fact that we know each other so well, and share the same ideals, is a blessing. Nowadays, when one is feeling depressed, he must fight hard to uphold the morality of the gentlemen. . . . In the future, if I hear of honest and upright men, I know they will be the likes of you.126

At about the same time that Ma Xulun made his departure, Chancellor Hu Renyuan submitted his resignation.127 Although Yuan Shikai refused to accept it, he never managed to rally the university to his side. Then, in June 1916, Yuan died. The president’s passing reopened the subject of how best to reconstruct a viable sociopolitical and intellectual order, as well as the question of who possessed the legitimacy to lead that massive and critically important effort.

chapter 4

Between the Old Culture and the New

Most of the radical ideas that captured the imagination of China’s progressive intellectuals during the New Culture Movement began to crystallize after the catastrophic Second Revolution among a loose network of thinkers and political activists, most of whom were outside China. But it was not until the late 1910s that those ideas formed the core of a potent domestic social movement. Such movements do not arise inevitably, as a result of the sheer force of the ideas they embody. Rather, they come into being when a variety of forces—institutional, intellectual, social, cultural, and political—enable leaders and supporters to coalesce into a self-conscious coterie that can claim legitimacy for its ideas and causes. In the years following Yuan Shikai’s failed attempt to restore the imperial system, Beijing University supplied the crucial institutional conditions necessary for “new culture” ideas to develop into a widespread social movement. Beijing University’s pivotal role at this juncture stemmed both from factors internal to the institution and from others over which those within the institution had no control whatsoever. The dramatic remaking of the university in the late 1910s occurred at this time for reasons having to do with larger developments in Chinese politics and culture. This was a moment of opportunity, a fluid period during which China faced a crisis of political authority and during which there was an active effort to redefine legitimate authority within Chinese society at large. Beida’s rise reflected a bid on the part of intellectuals to assert themselves 114


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in the remaking of the nation at a time when the imperial approach was no longer tenable and when republican-era civilian politicians and military leaders enjoyed low levels of public support. Ultimately, the crisis of authority of these years, and the increasing tendency of civilian politicians to ally with military figures who could help them resolve their conflicts with other civilian politicians, led to a new kind of threat to the authority of intellectuals.1 In the late 1910s, however, intellectuals still had considerable room for maneuver.

window of opportunity Yuan Shikai’s death created a power vacuum in the Chinese capital that hastened the collapse of the republican experiment and created conditions in which warlordism flourished. In summer 1916, however, Yuan’s death occasioned the widespread feeling that a fresh start on the revolution was again possible, that there was an inexorable logic to republicanism that made its ultimate victory inevitable. Peter Zarrow has observed that Yuan Shikai, even as he was seeking to have himself named emperor, found it necessary to adopt “the modern rhetoric of nation and citizenship” and to promise the Chinese people that he would uphold representative government. Zarrow contends that the 1911 Revolution succeeded in creating a new political language and expectations, even though it had thus far failed to deliver stable democratic institutions. This language and these expectations helped frame the way the “politically active, modernizing urban classes” thought about politics, and it shaped the way such people approached politics following Yuan Shikai’s death.2 After Yuan’s death, Li Yuanhong became president and, led by Zhang Shizhao, negotiators representing the National Protection Army soon persuaded Duan Qirui, the leader of the Beiyang military clique, to recognize the provisional constitution of March 1912. On August 1, Li Yuanhong appointed Duan Qirui premier, and the parliament that Yuan Shikai had disbanded in January 1914 was formally reconvened. For the first time in almost three years, then, those who had been forced to the sidelines after the Second Revolution were able to return to the center of Chinese political life. New hope for political renewal was ushered in by the return of these democratically elected politicians and by the widespread belief, championed in particular by Liang Qichao, that Duan Qirui’s opposition to Yuan Shikai’s imperial restoration scheme demonstrated his republican credentials. The appointment of a new cabinet

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stalled over mutual distrust between Duan Qirui and leaders from the South, but Duan’s grudging acceptance of southern nominations led to the approval of a cabinet that for the time being satisfied southern leaders that their political interests would be represented in Beijing.3 In summer and fall 1916 the capital was therefore alive with energy and talent again, just as it had been during other moments of optimism (1898, 1912) that punctuated the boom-bust cycle of hope that characterized politics in the capital during these decades. The reinstated National Assembly basked in the glory of the moment, earning praise from all quarters because so many of its number had worked against Yuan Shikai’s effort to crown himself emperor. Fresh from that cooperative effort and alert to the public’s ambivalence about the efficacy of republican institutions, in 1916 politicians went out of their way to avoid the accusations of narrow self-interestedness that had dogged them in the years immediately after 1911. One way they sought to do this was by shedding party labels in favor of names suggestive of statesmanlike concern for the national welfare. The Progressive Party split into the Constitutional Discussion Group (Xianfa taolunhui) and the Constitutional Research Association (Xianfa yanjiuhui), for example, and the various factions of the Guomindang joined together in the Society for the Discussion of Constitutional Government (Xianzheng shangquehui). A wave of anti-party sentiment (budang zhuyi) swept the capital, with parliamentarians preferring to portray themselves as men of noble purpose rather than partisan politicians. “Unity” (tuanjie) became the buzzword, and all who had returned to Beijing agreed about the need for a cooperative effort in the drafting of a new constitution. For a precious few months, therefore, it appeared that progressive change would indeed be made by the national political elite, within the political arena, and would be based on a spirit of tiaohe (compromise) and a common understanding of the national interest and the importance of constitutional government.

cai yuanpei and the zhejiang connection It was in this hopeful atmosphere that Cai Yuanpei returned from Europe (where he had been since 1913) to take over at Beijing University. In summer 1916, a month after the reconvened National Assembly met for the first time, assemblymen from Zhejiang invited Cai to assume the governorship of Zhejiang. Cai turned down the offer. Soon thereafter, upon learning that Chancellor Hu Renyuan would be leaving the Na-


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tional University, a group of scholars there suggested that Cai be named as Hu’s replacement. Those scholars were doubtless persuaded that Cai was the right man for the job, for his credentials as an educator were impeccable; in addition to his mastery of Chinese learning, he had also acquired a deep knowledge of Western learning. Nevertheless, “in this culture,” where “the personal network [had] always been an important social and political structure,” the fact that most of the men who lobbied for Cai to be named chancellor were from Zhejiang, or enjoyed close personal ties with the former Minister of Education, suggests that personal connections also smoothed Cai’s path to the National University. Current and former Beida professors Shen Yinmo, Ma Xulun, Xia Yuanli, and Chen Fuzhen strongly supported Cai for the position.4 Each of them was Zhejiangese and was closely associated with Zhang Taiyan’s disciples, almost all of whom also hailed from Zhejiang. Cai’s ties to Zhang were also extensive. The two men had known one another since at least 1902, when they helped organize the China Education Society; in 1913 Cai had served as an official witness at Zhang’s wedding. Still another Zhejiangese, Tang Erhe, the chancellor of the National Beijing Medical College, who had longstanding friendships with Cai Yuanpei, Chen Fuzhen, Shen Yinmo, Ma Xulun, and Xia Yuanli, proposed Cai’s name to the recently appointed Minister of Education, Fan Yuanlian. Fan, who had served as vice-minister of education under Cai in 1912, strongly supported Cai Yuanpei for the Beida position.5 Whereas in 1912 Yuan Shikai had refused to consider Cai as a replacement for Yan Fu at Beida, Li Yuanhong rapidly accepted Fan Yuanlian’s recommendation. By this time, Cai was solidly identified with political moderation. He was also a well-known advocate of high moral standards and gradual change through education. While in France, he had delivered a series of lectures at the School for Chinese Workers with titles such as “Freedom and Running Wild,” “Loving and Protecting Public Buildings and Public Property,” “Upright Character and Closedmindedness,” and “Love versus Lust,” in which he stressed the importance of self-discipline and the need to take responsibility for one’s freedom.6 Intellectuals were still viewed as a kind of political resource, and the Beiyang political leadership no doubt recognized that it would reflect well abroad and with intellectuals at home if this deeply respected humanistic scholar, who possessed a reading knowledge of six foreign languages (English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Latin), graced the capital with his presence.7 Upon receiving Li Yuanhong’s permission to offer the job to Cai Yuanpei, Fan Yuanlian cabled Cai in Paris. “The

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nation’s affairs have grown calmer and the need for education is urgent. Presently the highest school in the capital needs the leadership of a worthy man who can set an example for the people to follow. Our public figures hold you in the highest esteem . . . and earnestly hope that you will accept the chancellorship at Beijing University and return to the country at the earliest hour.”8 A short time later, Cai set sail for Shanghai. When Cai arrived in Shanghai, Wang Jingwei, Wu Zhihui, and Bai Junwu, among others, recommended that he turn down the offer, lest Beijing University’s poor reputation rub off on him and tarnish his good name. In fact, the majority of Cai’s one-time revolutionary colleagues discouraged him from going to the capital, but a few, including Sun Yatsen, urged him not to pass up the opportunity to work for reform in the North. Cai decided to accept the position after concluding that serving as university chancellor was not the same thing as becoming an official. Reflecting on this years later, Cai wrote, if “I did not pass through the gates of hell, who else would” (wo bu ru diyu shei ru diyu)?9 However, there is no evidence that Cai viewed his role at Beida as being one of direct service to the Guomindang. On the contrary, it was only after he felt convinced that serving as chancellor would not implicate him in political affairs that he accepted the post. Cai desired to build a world-class center of philosophy, science, and humanism in Beijing that could contribute to the nation’s cultural regeneration and had no intention of transforming Beida into a political hotbed when he went north in December 1916.

the power of the podium On January 4, 1917, a horse-drawn carriage entered the main gate of Beijing University and passed through two rows of university servants who were assembled there to bow a respectful greeting to the man newly appointed to lead the “highest school.” All in attendance were shocked to see the new chancellor remove his top hat and reciprocate the servants’ bows with one of his own. It was extraordinary to see a man of such stature showing a sign of respect to mere servants. But that was exactly the point Cai Yuanpei wanted to make: things were going to change at the National University. Thereafter, whenever he arrived in his horsedrawn carriage—he preferred this mode of conveyance to sedan chairs and rickshaws because it was less exploitative of human labor—Cai bowed to the men standing guard outside the university’s main gate.10 A few days later Cai again rocked the campus by delivering a bold in-


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augural address setting forth his vision for the university. He elaborated on the message he had conveyed as Minister of Education in 1912, telling the students that they had to be clear about the purpose of the university. Whereas students who graduate from specialty schools are chiefly concerned about their employment prospects, universities are dedicated to researching deep and profound knowledge. “People outside the university constantly talk about the corrupt nature of this institution,” Cai declared, “and observe that all who study here have it in their minds to become officials and get rich. . . . Because of their overwhelming wish to become officials, students care nothing about their professors’ depth of learning and think only about how high their professors’ bureaucratic ranks are. Most of the officials welcome this, since they know they can count on having loyal followers when their students graduate.” Those wishing to become officials or to make money should enroll in other, more appropriate, schools, Cai stated, rather than take up precious space at the university.11 Cai believed that only those who resisted temptations to wealth and power in order to pursue a life of contemplation could evolve into morally superior individuals. He also believed they were natural candidates for a leadership role in society, indeed that they had a duty to assume the role of moral exemplars for the nation. But in order to become such, university men had to distinguish themselves from ordinary people. When you gentlemen study at the university you must restrain yourselves and demonstrate self-respect. The country’s fortunes depend on the strength or weakness of its customs. With mores like those of the present, how is it possible to imagine a future? Therefore it is necessary that there be unsurpassed scholars who by the example of their personal conduct forcefully overcome degenerate customs. You, gentlemen, are university students. Your social status is very lofty. You must take on this heavy burden; it is your duty. . . . If you fail to cultivate morality, or to pay attention to your studies, merely following along with prevailing ways as participants in the corrupt world, people will look down on you, and it will be beyond your power to move them.12

Cai urged the students to help one another lead more upstanding lives by developing a stronger sense of corporate identity and learning to treat one another with love and respect. If German shopkeepers could be polite to their customers, he asserted, then surely China’s university students could learn to treat one another and their professors with common decency. The distinction of being a university student was no longer to derive from opportunities for advancement and riches, but rather from

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the opportunity to live a life of value, and thereby to be in a position to help the nation regain its political and cultural footing. When Cai Yuanpei insisted that students give up their quest for office and wealth and instead devote themselves to self-improvement and disinterested scholarship, he was invoking a theme that had a long tradition in China. His vision had much in common with the German concept of bildung, but there was also a strong resonance in his thinking to the ethos of the privately funded academy (shuyuan), which stressed the importance of self-cultivation and resisted the prevailing tendency in late imperial China to view education in narrowly utilitarian terms. Indeed, in their quest for cultural regeneration New Culture leaders displayed nostalgia for and were inspired by intellectual heroes and traditions from the Chinese past. Often they were critical of the tendency of modern, Western-style schools to segregate knowledge into discrete disciplinary categories without making an effort to resynthesize it or to inject it with moral purpose. Many leading figures from the 1910s—Cai Yuanpei, Liang Qichao, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Zhang Taiyan, and Fu Sinian—felt that modern schools ran the risk of alienating students from the true spirit of learning, that they were in many ways inferior to (idealized) oldstyle academies, wherein teachers and students interacted with one another in a highly personalistic manner.13 The extraordinary impact of Cai Yuanpei’s reform program at Beida derived as much from the timing of his arrival in Beijing as it did from the content of his message. In general, the Beiyang leadership was too distracted by its own political struggles to concern itself overly with developments at the university. Under these circumstances, Cai was able to carve out a more autonomous space than had existed at the university during the late Qing or under Yuan Shikai, when the central government was far stronger and more certain about what was in its best interests culturally and politically. The significance of Cai’s efforts was also boosted by the fact that he issued his appeal for reform from a strategically well-placed institution. In 1917 Beijing University was for all intents and purposes still the only national university in China.14 To a man who believed China could be saved only by focusing on education, the chance to lead the National University, widely viewed as the successor to the Taixue, presented the perfect opportunity. Transforming an institution so steeped in the inherited historical meaning of China’s “highest school” involved refashioning an old symbol of authority, not inventing an entirely new one. In other words, by reforming the National University Cai was able to har-


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ness history to his purpose of leading the march into Chinese modernity rather than rejecting history altogether. Furthermore, Beida’s reputation for moral rot presented the new chancellor with the perfect foil, precisely because of the stark contrast between what the university recently had been and what he was proposing that it become. If such a notoriously corrupt institution could be turned around, there was no limit to the renewal that could be imagined. Nor was anyone better positioned to play the role of educational statesman than Cai Yuanpei. At a time when the scholar’s gown was worn as a mark of distinction by professors and students alike, a former Hanlin scholar like Cai Yuanpei, who had absorbed Western ideas but also showed devotion to Chinese culture, commanded great respect—for he was able to simultaneously project a sense of cosmopolitanism and exude pride in the world-historical greatness of Chinese civilization. Cai’s soft-spoken but firm manner lent him tremendous moral authority, as did his simple dress and vegetarian diet. He did not indulge in gambling, banqueting, or prostitutes—all common pursuits among literati at this time—nor did he ever purchase a large residence in keeping with his status. In describing Cai, Feng Youlan compared him to the great Songdynasty scholar Cheng Hao, writing that Cai’s words “entered people’s minds like the sweetness of welcome rain. His mind was perceptive, his insight keen, his depth as vast as a boundless ocean. Fine words of praise cannot describe his virtue.”15 Luo Jialun claimed that Cai’s call for reform at the university “broke through the black pestilence that hung over Beijing. It give Beida a new soul,” Luo said, and “inspired youth all across the country.” Word of the change at the National University spread across China rapidly. New Youth printed Cai’s inaugural address accompanied by a commentary by a student, Chen Qilu, who explained that he had come to Beida from the South three years earlier expecting to find a center of civilization, only to be terribly disappointed. As far as he was concerned, the new chancellor’s inaugural address went to the core of what was wrong with the Beijing academic community. In April 1917 Cai’s address was also published in Dongfang zazhi (Eastern Miscellany), one of the most widely read periodicals in the country.16

tapping the new culture network Cai Yuanpei swiftly implemented a series of organizational reforms at Beijing University, some of which he had attempted with little success to

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enact during his brief tenure as Minister of Education five years earlier. Three months after becoming chancellor he established a policy-making council (pingyihui), which he modeled directly on those that had been in place in German universities since the eighteenth century. In March 1917 this effort at democratization bore fruit when ten faculty members were selected to serve on the council, which had considerable power over rules and regulations at the university, as well as curriculum, student discipline, and academic evaluation. Cai committed himself to respecting the decisions reached by the council even if he disagreed with them, though he turned down a request by students that they be allowed to place a representative of their own on the body.17 Cai argued that the German higher education system, wherein universities concentrated on the humanities and natural sciences while other, specialty, schools concentrated on engineering, business, and agriculture, was superior to China’s current system based on the Japanese model. He believed that professional schools distracted energy and resources away from what should be the university’s essential mission— pure research in the humanities and natural sciences. With help from sympathetic deans and professors, Cai steered Beida toward the new curricular focus, so that the humanities division in particular rapidly developed into the intellectually most vibrant portion of the university and the center of the New Culture Movement. In 1919 the business division was phased out as a separate entity, and by the early 1920s the engineering division was closed as well—remaining students were sent to Beiyang University in Tianjin. Cai’s effort to do away with the law division was less successful, but the chancellor did stipulate that no individual could serve as a full professor while simultaneously holding government office. This had an impact on the law faculty since many of its number held important posts in central government ministries. Cai originally proposed the reorganization in July 1917. In 1918 the Ministry of Education approved most of the plan, resulting in increased funding for the humanities and natural sciences. Beida succeeded in drawing more students into the natural sciences, but even a decade later the number of majors was minuscule as compared to the number in the social sciences, and especially law, which remained the most popular through the mid-1920s.18 Indeed, none of these reforms came easily. Cai complained about how difficult it was to run the university, given the tight control exerted by the Ministry of Education. “To be chancellor of Beijing University is to be half bureaucrat, and requires that one develop all sorts of bureaucratic relationships. . . . If [one] oversteps the regulations in the least lit-


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tle manner it is necessary to get permission from the Ministry of Education,” Cai wrote. “To focus the university on the humanities and natural sciences . . . requires that an official come over from the Ministry to give it his consideration.” Nor were the officials competent to do their jobs once they arrived, according to Cai. “The Ministry sends halfinformed officials to check up on things; after they make their reports they always issue new regulations and several critical sentences. I despise bureaucrats.”19 Cai had particular difficulty when he tried to terminate the contracts of faculty members whose teaching he considered below standard, or whose taste for the pleasure quarters contributed to Beida’s dissolute atmosphere. Several of those dismissed were foreigners, including two Englishmen who were so infuriated by Cai’s actions that they sued both the university and the chancellor. Having enlisted the British ambassador on their side, they asked for a full year’s salary plus additional money for the damage they claimed Cai Yuanpei had done to their career prospects. Cai had to exert great effort before he eventually won the case, and reportedly he also offended the remaining foreign professors by requiring that Chinese instead of English be spoken during lectures and faculty meetings. When one of the foreign professors complained that he did not understand Chinese, Cai snapped: “If I were teaching at a university in your country would you all speak Chinese on my behalf whenever you held a meeting?”20 The policy that had by far the greatest impact on the culture of the university, and that has earned Cai Yuanpei lasting admiration from Chinese intellectuals, was the one he followed in hiring professors, not the one he used to fire them. Invoking the intellectual pluralism of the Warring States period, Cai hired professors in accordance with the philosophy that all ideas grounded in reason equally deserve a hearing.21 Speaking on the need for “broad-minded tolerance” (jianrong bingbao) and “freedom of thought” (sixiang ziyou), Cai declared that “the judgments of all beings are based on critical thought, there are no absolutes. One’s own theories need not fetter another person’s, just as another person’s need not fetter one’s own.” “If these ideas are followed sincerely,” he continued, “then the natural and human sciences and all the other disciplines will conform to the idea of freedom of discussion.”22 This strong commitment to tolerance is the most commonly lauded of Cai Yuanpei’s traits. The ability to find value in ideas from all times and places and his belief that different worldviews could be blended to the benefit of all hu-

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manity also made Cai difficult to pigeonhole. As Zhou Zuoren explained, colleagues at Beida joked that their chancellor belonged to the “Ancient-Modern Chinese-Foreign School” (Gujin zhongwai pai).23 By standing for variety and freedom of choice, Cai distanced himself from any single academic school, focusing instead on education as a process that required open inquiry and intellectual exchange. Further, he maintained that scholars should not be judged according to their ages, formal credentials, or political preferences. Still, Cai was not welcoming of all schools of thought, and his interpretation of “tolerance” was not entirely free of political bias. For example, he argued that academic theories that “had become obsolete through natural selection” (ziran taotai zhi yuanming zhi) could be ignored at the university, and for this reason did not feel it necessary to hire scholars who belonged to the Tongcheng literary school. In declaring that school passé—a position with which many fervently disagreed—Cai Yuanpei demonstrated a willingness to declare his own opinion the definitive truth.24 Cai Yuanpei drove home the seriousness of his intention to revolutionize the university by appointing his one-time revolutionary comrade, Chen Duxiu, dean of humanities. This selection stemmed from advice Cai received from Shen Yinmo and Tang Erhe, both of whom had been instrumental in the decision to appoint Cai chancellor, and both of whom were longtime friends of Chen’s.25 New Youth did not begin to have a substantial impact on the national political and cultural scene until well after Chen Duxiu took it with him to Beijing. The journal had been closed down through much of 1916, and no more than one thousand copies of any single issue had ever been printed. Zhang Guotao stated in his memoir that few of his Beida classmates were familiar with or regular readers of New Youth until after Chen Duxiu arrived at Beida. Moreover, intellectuals who were acquainted with New Youth at this stage—Zhou Shuren (soon to become known as Lu Xun), Zhou Zuoren, and Xu Shouchang—held negative views of the journal or were uninterested at best. Those who knew and worked with Chen Duxiu in Shanghai were among the first to realize that his appointment to the highvisibility university post opened new opportunities for New Youth to influence the country at large. Upon learning of the appointment, for example, Wang Yuanfang, the nephew of Wang Mengzou, with whom Chen Duxiu was preparing to open a bookstore in Shanghai, claims to have declared: “When we heard the news we said . . . ‘For Chen Zhongweng [Duxiu] to be appointed National Beijing University’s Dean of Humanities is . . . much better than his being the proprietor of a large book-


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store. Schools, newspapers, and bookstores are all important, but I think schools are most important.’ ”26 Cai Yuanpei’s appointment of Chen Duxiu illustrates that his defense of broad-minded tolerance benefited those who sought to challenge the prevailing culture at Beida. For his part, in a letter to New Youth Chen identified himself with the inclusive spirit championed by Cai Yuanpei, while also making it clear that he viewed the National University as a valuable platform from which to work for wider acceptance of his emerging political and cultural agenda. “With regard to the country’s national learning and national literature,” Chen wrote, “I believe all schools of thought should be treated equally, and that no single school should command absolute loyalty. I also believe the people’s popular literature should be promoted. I pledge to spread these ideas across the country, not to limit my promotion of them to the humanities division at the university.”27 Famously, Cai Yuanpei also went out of his way to accommodate cultural conservatives such as Huang Kan and Liu Shipei—then the outstanding practitioner of the Wenxuan literary style—both of whom were masters of the sixth- and seventh-century antithetic literary style (pianwen), as well as Cui Shi, a follower of Kang Youwei’s New Text literary tradition.28 Huang and Liu were political progressives during the late Qing, but their cultural talents and tastes ran toward the conservative. The most notorious reactionary at the university was Gu Hongming, an overseas Chinese from Malaya who had been educated in England and Germany and served as an adviser to Zhang Zhidong for twenty years. Though Gu was fluent in English and read several other European languages, as well as Latin (which, along with English literature, is what he taught at Beida) and ancient Greek, he was a vociferous critic of the Westernization of China and a strong defender of Chinese tradition. Gu was a well-known provocateur; he talked about the beauty of bound feet and wore his hair in a queue to demonstrate his loyalty to the fallen Manchu dynasty. Even Gu’s rickshaw puller wore his hair in a queue.29 Still, the most important result of Cai Yuanpei’s hiring policy was that it facilitated the movement of the nascent New Culture community from the margins of China’s cultural and political arena to the very center. During the three years following the Second Revolution, the future leaders of the New Culture Movement comprised a loose-knit fraternity of opinion bound together by a web of interpersonal ties and a common hope for gradual change based on cooperation, education, and moral renewal. The community was without an institutional home until Cai

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Yuanpei brought its leading members to the National University. After becoming chancellor, Cai appointed to key positions people who were close to him and whom he could trust. For example, he named his brother-in-law, Huang Youxuan, to serve as Beida’s accountant and twenty-three-year-old Xu Baohuang, a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, to serve as his personal secretary. Xu’s uncle, Xu Xiujun, a martyr from the Second Revolution, had been a personal friend of Cai’s. On the advice of Zhou Shuren, who, like Cai, was from Shaoxing, Cai also hired Zhou’s brother, Zhou Zuoren. Like Zhou Shuren, Zhou Zuoren was well connected at the university because so many of Zhang Taiyan’s disciples were already on the faculty. Cai instructed Chen Duxiu to invite the twenty-six-year-old Hu Shi, then in the United States completing a dissertation under John Dewey’s direction, to fill positions in philosophy and English.30 Cai Yuanpei also looked to his comrades from the late-Qing period. One of these was Zhang Yuanji, whom he asked to suggest people who could help him create a new atmosphere at the National University. Cai invited Jiang Weiqiao, then working for Zhang Yuanji at the Commercial Press, whom he had also hired on at the Ministry of Education in 1912, to join him at Beida, as well as Wang Chonghui, Wu Zhihui, Wang Jingwei, and Li Shizeng, Guomindang members all, and the latter three his principal collaborators in Paris during the Yuan Shikai era. In his January 1917 letter to Wu Zhihui, Cai wrote that Wu could provide a model of outstanding character and help the students appreciate the importance of research. Like Jiang Weiqiao, however, Wu turned down Cai’s offer, perhaps because he did not have confidence that an intellectually vibrant university could be brought into being in China’s capital. When he also contacted Wang Jingwei, Cai Yuanpei explained that Beijing’s political climate was no longer as hostile to educators as it had been a few years earlier. In a telling letter that reveals much about his vision, Cai told Wang that if he came to Beijing University he could become a heroic figure of the same stature as Johann Gottlieb Fichte, one of the fathers of the German nation and the philosophical leader of the educational reform movement in Prussia, whose program for reorganizing the universities Wilhelm von Humboldt put into effect in 1808. In his 1794 Lectures on the Scholar’s Vocation, Fichte had called on “pure intellectuals” to come to the rescue of the country at a time of great peril. He argued that Germany would become great through spiritual strength— here the concept of bildung is critical—not through military might. “In the past,” Cai wrote to Wang, “when Napoleon trampled on Prussia, the


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university professor Fichte made a number of patriotic speeches and helped reform the university, thereby helping to save Prussia. The success of German unification . . . originated in those efforts. You, sir, are China’s Fichte. I sincerely hope you see fit to answer the call, to take over as a professor of Chinese literature and wake the spirit of youth to the true national learning.” Like Jiang and Wu, however, Wang declined to join Cai at the National University. Of the leading figures with whom Cai had collaborated in Europe in 1915 and 1916, only Li Shizeng, who was highly interested in anarchist thought, joined him at Beida.31 Not everyone responded to Cai’s call, but many did. Chen Duxiu invited his long-time friend, Zhang Shizhao, to become a professor of philosophy. At the time, Zhang was already living in the capital, where he was serving in the Senate and was closely associated with the Society for the Discussion of Politics (Zhengxuehui), a proto-political party led by Jingshi daxuetang graduates Gu Zhongxiu and Zhang Yaoceng.32 In January 1917 Zhang Shizhao had restarted The Tiger (now called Tiger Daily) so as to have a forum through which to comment on political developments in the capital. Because his energies were taken up by his involvement in the political fray, however, Zhang left day-to-day operations in the hands of Li Dazhao and Gao Yihan, both of whom had been significant contributors to the original Tiger. In the first issue of Zhang’s resuscitated publication, Li Dazhao wrote, “The tide of evolution in today’s world is flowing, complex and rapid. In this world The Tiger wants to make its own contribution . . . hundreds of thousands times greater than its past efforts.” Li also stated that Tiger Daily could win the hearts of readers only if it helped people understand their mutual interests. “Compromise is the mother of beauty” (tiaohezhe, mei zhi mu ye), he wrote. Li Dazhao’s contribution to the publication was so extensive that Zhang Shizhao later commented that Li deserved more credit for Tiger Daily than he did.33 In January 1917, when Chen Duxiu wrote to Hu Shi to invite him to accept a professorship at Beida, he also used the occasion to solicit articles for both Tiger Daily and his own journal, making it clear that he was still closely identified with Zhang Shizhao and that he considered the two publications to be complementary.34 Further evidence that the two were in close contact can be seen in the fact that Li Dazhao, Gao Yihan, and Zhang Shizhao each published in New Youth at the same time that they were in charge of Tiger Daily. Unlike New Youth, however, the revived Tiger was short-lived. After a three-way power struggle between President Li Yuanhong, Premier Duan Qirui, and the National Assembly re-

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sulted in the dissolution of the latter in June 1917, a disgusted Zhang closed the newspaper, declared his intention to keep away from direct political involvement for three years, and finally accepted the offer to serve as professor of logic at Beida.35 By fall 1917, then, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, and Zhang Shizhao, three of the most important leaders of the incipient New Culture community during the Yuan Shikai dictatorship, each held influential positions at the National University.

refashioning the highest school The political developments that prompted Zhang Shizhao’s retreat to the university had a dramatic impact on other intellectuals as well. Before the series of events that began with Li Yuanhong’s April 1917 dismissal of Duan Qirui and ended with the reactionary military leader Zhang Xun’s failed attempt to restore the Manchu emperor to the throne a few months later, intellectuals still clung to the hope that China’s political leaders could evolve a viable, legal means of conducting business with one another.36 The violence and the attempt to restore the monarchy in the summer of 1917 shattered that hope and persuaded many progressives of the absolute bankruptcy of what they increasingly referred to as “traditional thought.” On July 2, the day after Zhang Xun’s Pigtailed Army restored elevenyear-old Puyi to the imperial throne, Cai Yuanpei fled to Tianjin. Afterward he wrote to President Li Yuanhong to tender his resignation. A week later, Cai received a cable soliciting his advice from Feng Guozhang, who had taken over as president following Li Yuanhong’s forced departure. Cai insisted that he was an educator, not a politician— Feng Guozhang also solicited advice from Sun Yatsen and Tang Shaoyi, among others—but nonetheless told Feng that the National Assembly should be restored and the country returned to the rule of law as soon as possible.37 Beijing University was in a highly vulnerable position. Zhang Xun’s forces were stationed next to the university, and at one point an airplane belonging to Duan Qirui’s anti-Zhang Xun forces dropped bombs on the Forbidden City a few blocks away. Moreover, soldiers loyal to Duan Qirui seized one of Beida’s dormitories and established a gun emplacement on its roof after sighting an imperial banner hanging outside the school’s main gate. As classes had already let out for the summer, however, and because Duan’s troops defeated the Pigtail Army so quickly, the university did not sustain significant damage. The policymaking council managed to operate in Cai Yuanpei’s absence, and by the


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end of July the chancellor had withdrawn his resignation and returned to Beijing.38 As with Yuan Shikai’s attempt to become emperor, the rapid unraveling of Zhang Xun’s poorly conceived restoration bid demonstrated the extent to which republican ideals had already become entrenched within China’s political culture. Imperial restoration was out of the question. Nevertheless, the breakdown of the rule of law and the Zhang Xun episode had deep repercussions. For Zhou Zuoren, who arrived in Beijing shortly after Zhang Xun restored Puyi to the throne, the events of July served as an unforgettable initiation into the drama and frustrations of life in the capital. When I was in Shaoxing many important events occurred, such as the 1911 Revolution and Yuan Shikai’s monarchical bid, but because I was in an outof-the-way place, “heaven seemed high and the emperor felt far away.” . . . But in Beijing things are very different; whether it’s a small event or a big one, everything plays out in front of your eyes, [and because] you can see things up close and as they really are, the impact is far more profound. The restoration did not last long, and did not lead to a return of the imperial system, but it disturbed people a great deal.39

During the Zhang Xun episode, political symbols of old were everywhere to be seen in the capital. Imperial flags were hastily put on display, and resourceful tailors accustomed to making money off changes in political ornamentation immediately began producing dragon pennants, selling Qing dynasty–style robes, and marketing false queues made out of the long hairs from horses’ tails.40 Zhou Zuoren found the sight of imperial dragon banners repugnant. He later recalled how delighted he was that the crudely drawn dragon images came to look like nothing more than “dead eels” (siman) when the five-colored flag of the republic was raised again after the collapse of the restoration attempt. It was Zhou’s opinion that Zhang Xun’s attempt to restore the imperial system led the intellectual community to conclude that China could not move forward unless it underwent an “intellectual revolution” (sixiang geming). And indeed, according to Zhou’s biographer, Qian Liqun, it was in the immediate aftermath of the restoration attempt that Zhou Zuoren, Zhou Shuren, and Qian Xuantong became entirely persuaded of the need to uproot Confucian thinking. At this moment, too, the three men broke with their mentor, Zhang Taiyan, over the issue of vernacular Chinese, which they embraced and Zhang condemned.41 Others, too, were deeply affected by the events of 1917. A month after Zhang Xun was defeated, Li Dazhao reflected on the summer’s events in

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an article entitled “Refuting Disingenuous Compromise” (Pi wei tiaohe), which was published in Pacific Ocean (Taiping yang), a new journal with close ties to The Tiger.42 Li accused politicians of violating the spirit of democracy and threatening the very existence of civil government. Two months later, in an article entitled “Violence and Politics,” he asserted that the events of the previous summer were driving China down the terrible but inevitable road of revolution. “Of course revolution cannot produce good government,” Li wrote, “but corrupt government is most certainly going to lead to revolution.”43 For Chen Duxiu, too, the shortlived restoration was a formative experience. After excoriating Kang Youwei for supporting Zhang Xun and blasting Confucianism for leading to restorationist thinking, Chen closed New Youth—whose sales had been very poor to date—in order to reassess his options. Between August 1917 and January 1918 no new issues of the journal were published.44 During those months, Chen worked with Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Shizhao, and others to accelerate reform at the National University. In fall 1917 Hu Shi chose to join the Beida faculty rather than remain in the United States to complete his Ph.D.45 Not only did Hu possess remarkable intellectual breadth and energy, he also understood the critical importance of the National University. In 1915, while a student in the United States, he had written an essay entitled “The Importance of National Universities.” There, he stated that if during his lifetime China established a university on a par with Harvard, Cambridge, Berlin, or Paris University, he would be able to die in peace. How was it possible that a country with a population of four hundred million people did not have a university? “For a country to lack a navy or an army is not cause for shame,” but “a country without a university, a national library, museum, or art gallery, should be ashamed.”46 By fall 1917 the university had also hired Li Dazhao (on the recommendation of Zhang Shizhao), Liang Shuming, Wu Mei, Liu Fu, Liu Wendian, Cheng Yansheng, Wang Xinggong, and Zhu Jiahua—most of whom had written for The Tiger, New Youth, or both. Gao Yihan and Yang Changji, who also had ties to those journals, were hired the following year. Most of these individuals were paid over two hundred Chinese dollars per month. By way of comparison, lower-primary-school teachers in Beijing were paid approximately twenty-four dollars a month, and higher-primary teachers were paid some thirty-two dollars.47 When they were gathered together as professors at Beida, the men who belonged to the embryonic New Culture community acquired a legitimacy and degree of influence that they could not possibly have possessed


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during their wilderness years following the Second Revolution. During the years when Duan Qirui’s Anfu Clique held power, belonging to the National University faculty translated into direct political power, for to be sworn into the national legislature elected members of the upper house of parliament had to be approved by a central election committee (zhongyang xuanjuhui). Anyone who was on the faculty at the National University or who held a Ph.D. from a foreign university was qualified to serve on that committee.48 In a year’s time, then, the members of the incipient and decentralized New Culture network went from being politically disenfranchised outsiders to being well-paid and well-positioned insiders, from being an informal, scattered network of like-minded individuals to being members of a single faculty at the most prestigious institution of higher learning in China. The change was transforming: men who had never before met but who had corresponded for years or read each other’s articles in journals could now visit and talk with each other in person about political, academic, and personal matters. The routines of daily life at Beijing University assured as much, as Zhou Zuoren observed: At that time it was the fall of 1917, only five or six months after I arrived in Beijing, so things at Beida were still pretty fresh. . . . When you entered the [university] gate and walked north there was a freestanding building next to the wall on the west, and to the east was the faculty break room. . . . Many famous people gathered there every day, including Qian Xuantong, Zhu Xizu, Liu Wendian, and Dr. Hu Shi . . . Shen Yinmo and Ma Yuzao.49

In his study of the history of philosophy Randall Collins concentrates on intellectual cohorts and the importance of personal relationships, arguing that “without face-to-face rituals, writings and ideas would never be charged up with emotional energy.”50 By all accounts, a heightened sense of group identity took hold among the more progressive-minded professors very quickly after they joined the Beida faculty. Most of these men were from Jiangnan and shared the experience of having spent time studying abroad. They also belonged to the same age cohort; the average age of the university’s ninety professors at the beginning of 1918 was in the low thirties—significantly, not much older than the average age of students in the regular college, which was twenty-four.51 No doubt Chen Duxiu, Zhu Xizu, Hu Shi, Liu Fu, and Liu Wendian were nicknamed the “two old rabbits and the three young rabbits” (liangge lao tuzi he sange xiao tuzi) not only because they were all born in the year of the rabbit, but also because a spirit of camaraderie united the five men into an iden-

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tifiable group. The coalescence of the New Culture community can also be seen in the list of professors who pooled money to purchase a wedding gift for Hu Shi in November 1917; among others, the group included Shen Yinmo, Liu Wendian, Zhu Xizu, Zhou Zuoren, Qian Xuantong, Liu Fu, Zhang Shizhao, Chen Duxiu, and Cai Yuanpei. Several months later, Hu Shi spent over a fifth of his annual salary treating those same friends to a banquet dinner, providing further evidence that professional relationships overlapped with and eased the formation of personal friendships and thereby laid the groundwork for what turned out to be an explosive intellectual synergy.52 Being hired on at the “highest school” was also transforming because it implied and fostered a sense of national, even international, consciousness and responsibility. During the late imperial period, officials summoned to Beijing were assumed to have familiarity with the imperial culture, and it was an honor for them to be associated with it in its most elevated form in the capital. Local identity influenced the way people entered into and experienced life on the national stage, but after an official crossed that stage he gained new status and prestige.53 Thereafter, his connections to the imperial center forever distinguished him as a man above and apart. Even when regionalism began to take hold after the Taiping Rebellion, the capital continued to draw considerable talent from the provinces because it was “where scholars were gathered, where books were most plentiful, and was the center of scholarship.”54 Deepseated cultural values tend to get transformed and sublimated rather than obliterated outright, so it is hardly surprising that Beijing continued to project an aura of cosmopolitanism even after 1912 and that those stationed there continued to view themselves as figures of national import. In fall 1917 Cai Yuanpei and the deans of the humanities and natural sciences colleges, Chen Duxiu and Xia Yuanli, worked through the policy-making council to enact a wide array of organizational and academic reforms. These reforms were designed to harness the considerable energy and commitment to excellence that the new faculty members brought to Beida. In addition to instituting curricular changes that broadened the range of courses and redefined requirements for majors, the policy-making council approved the establishment of departmental assemblies (jiaoshouhui) to provide a forum for the discussion of departmentally specific matters outside the purview of the policy-making council. Undoubtedly, the cohort of young professors became better integrated and developed a heightened sense of professionalism through their participation in faculty self-governance. When Hu Shi, Zhang Shizhao, and


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Shen Yinmo were elected to the policy-making council toward the end of Cai Yuanpei’s first year in office, that body became an even more reliable base of support for the chancellor’s reformist policies.55 Another noteworthy development was the founding of the Beijing University Daily (Beijing daxue rikan), a four- to six-page newspaper that began publication on November 16, 1917. The official record of the daily goings-on at the university, the Beijing University Daily is an invaluable source, rich with material about a wide variety of topics. In the main, it served as an official information sheet—publishing such things as class times, fee schedules, announcements of public lectures, reminders about classes, reports on student activities, and notices to students regarding their provincial governments’ responses to their requests for financial aid. Since the newspaper contained so much practical information, it is likely to have been indispensable to anyone associated with Beida on a daily basis. For this reason, the Daily served as an important instrument of campus integration. Benedict Anderson has described the important role of the newspaper, the “one-day best-seller,” in the imagining of common national identity; I believe Beida’s newspaper played a similar role in knitting together that infinitely smaller community, providing a common reference point. Gu Jiegang recalled that it also helped break down the barriers that divided university administrators from the students. “If students had suggestions regarding improvements that could be made at the university they could publish them in the Daily,” Gu stated, and “in that manner the students stopped feeling a sense of distance from the university, and administrators long in the habit of putting on airs in front of students were no longer in a position to do that.”56 Indeed, the regular accounts of council and departmental assembly meetings that appear in the Daily, as well as notices from the editors inviting readers to comment on the newspaper and to contribute articles for publication, create the distinct impression of an administration doing its utmost to be open and direct about its inner workings.57 But if the newspaper contributed to a more democratic and unified environment at the university, it also reflected the sober-minded concerns of the administration and probably did not displace popular tabloids like Record of Leisure (Xiaoxian lu), which contained the appealing gossip about opera performers and prostitutes that students no doubt continued to seek out.58 Nor does the Beijing University Daily’s dry content divulge much colorful information about the lifestyles and private concerns of its readers. Moreover, since its editors refused to publish articles discussing current or religious affairs as a matter of policy, the Daily is

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not a particularly revealing source with regard to the more controversial issues of the day.59 No doubt that was its editors’ intent, since Cai Yuanpei was interested first and foremost in education and would not have wanted to give government censors any opportunity to charge the National University with staking out partisan positions on matters that were outside its “proper” sphere of expertise. The Beijing University Daily is highly revealing with regard to the determined effort by the university’s new leaders to transform Beida into a serious research institution. The first issue of the newspaper, for instance, carried a notice announcing the formation of China’s first significant graduate programs, which were organized in Chinese literature, English literature, philosophy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, law, political science, and economics. Early issues of the Daily reported extensively on the creation of a research-oriented academic culture among a small portion of the student body.60 The Daily carried announcements for lectures on subjects ranging from the development of the modern Japanese novel to ethics, astronomy, and the relationship between philosophy and natural science.61 It also regularly published lists of book and journal titles recently acquired by the university library. The titles in those lists attest to the wide-ranging interests—or at least what the university’s new leaders hoped would be the wide-ranging interests—of the professors and students, and to the remarkable degree to which the university was linked to an international scholarly community now that so many young professors who had received their training abroad were on the faculty.

the explosion of extracurricular societies Cai Yuanpei strongly believed that students needed to be given greater responsibility for their own lives. “Affairs at the university are very simple and students can manage all of them by themselves,” he stated, “but since they are put in the hands of administrators, without knowing it, the students abdicate responsibility for their studies, moral conduct, and hygiene, showing little concern with such matters thereafter. They behave like a man staying at an inn, who, once he has checked his important documents over to the cashier, no longer feels any need to worry about them.”62 To address this problem, Cai encouraged students to participate in educationally and morally uplifting extracurricular activities. The first organization designed to meet those goals was the Frugal Study Society (Beijing daxue tongxue jianxuehui), founded in summer 1917 on the initiative of a small group of students. The Frugal Study So-


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ciety reflected the influence of anarchist thought; it had no leaders and all “comrades” (tongzhi) were expected to forego conspicuous consumption and morally degrading activities in order to concentrate on their studies. The ideals the “comrades” swore to live by fit well with more traditional Chinese concepts of morality, corroborating Peter Zarrow’s observation that Chinese intellectuals were attracted to anarchism in great measure because of the great resonance to Neo-Confucian moralism.63 To stay in good standing, members of the Society had to eschew gambling, prostitutes, opium, alcohol, and rickshaws; they also had to pledge to use Chinese currency, to eat and dress simply, to keep themselves neat and clean, and to maintain regular sleeping hours. Members were to live together in a single dormitory without servants or monitors assigned by the university, and were to cultivate respect for public order, an attitude of mutual support, and a commitment to social reform.64 In 1917 Beida was also home to the Truth Society (Shishe), a small group of ideologically focused Guangzhou anarchists inspired by Liu Sifu (or Shifu), who gravitated to the National University after Cai Yuanpei and Li Shizeng arrived.65 The Truth Society declared itself open to all people (females included) except those involved in political life, and, like the Frugal Study Society, announced its chief purpose to be the advancement of morality.66 Unlike the Frugal Study Society, however, the Truth Society viewed anarchism as a programmatic ideology of social revolution and worked actively to attract new adherents. To accomplish this goal, its members published Freedom Record (Ziyou lu), which compiled translations of writings by Kropotkin, Bakunin, and Tolstoy, among others. The Society also worked for the adoption of Esperanto (shijieyu, or aisipolanduo), which was first taught at Beida in fall 1917. On December 4, 1917, the Beijing University Daily published the 1905 manifesto of the international Esperanto movement. Thereafter, the newspaper devoted space to the teaching of Esperanto vocabulary, and in February 1918 it added a daily two-page section whose title page was printed in Esperanto: “Pekin-Universitato Chutago Gazeto” (Beijing University Daily).67 It is indisputable that anarchism had significant appeal at Beijing University as early as 1917. Arif Dirlik has argued that anarchism provided Chinese progressives with “a social imaginary” and that “by the eve of the May Fourth Movement, anarchists’ vocabulary had . . . become integral to the language of radicalism in China . . . even of those who could not be described as anarchists in any strict sense of the word.”68 I concur

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with Dirlik on this point, but again would emphasize that doctrinaire anarchists, such as those who founded the Truth Society, had a very limited influence at Beijing University before the May Fourth Movement.69 The anarchism that was influential at Beida immediately before the May Fourth Movement was characterized by an emphasis on self-cultivation and group solidarity rather than by programmatic thinking that led to hardened social revolutionary commitments. Morality, tolerance, mutual aid, and self-improvement through education—those were the principal social themes stressed by the leaders of the university during this period. For most people anarchism did not determine the centrality of those themes; rather, it was embraced to the extent that it spoke to them, and thereafter it helped shape the way they were articulated. Diverse streams of thought influenced the leaders of the university as they set out to awaken students to the benefits of committed lives and wholesome forms of recreation. Anarchist ideas about collectivist models of organization were an important stimulus, but so too, especially for Cai Yuanpei, were beliefs about the morally and spiritually uplifting value of aesthetics. Cai believed that by cultivating an appreciation for beauty, people could attain a feeling of connection with the larger forces of the universe and thus overcome the spiritual disorientation that resulted from the collapse of the Confucian worldview. In April 1917 Cai delivered a lecture entitled “Aesthetic Education as Replacement for Religion,” in which he opined that religion divided people, whereas good art, because it transcends the experience of individuals, enables them to feel part of the larger world. By the next year, courses on the theory and history of aesthetics were on offer at Beida through the departments of Chinese, English, and philosophy.70 In spring 1917 Cai Yuanpei founded the Music Society (Yinyuehui), which had separate sections focused on Western and Chinese music. Cai himself chaired the Society, which met weekly for the purpose of cultivating an appreciation for music among interested students. Thereafter, students performed concerts on a regular basis, including a major one each year in honor of the Spring Festival. The Society extended invitations to well-known musicians such as Wang Lu, who, in May 1918, performed concerts showcasing his talent on the classical Chinese lute (gu qin) and the balloon guitar (pi pa) and in the process set off a craze of interest in classical Chinese music at Beida. In 1920 Cai hired the accomplished Japanese- and German-trained musician, Xiao Youmei, under whose leadership classical Chinese and Western music education truly began to flourish. In March 1920 the first periodical in modern China de-


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voted to music education, Music Magazine (Yinyue zazhi), began publication at Beida. The next year, following Wang Lu’s premature death, Liu Tianhua, another of China’s virtuoso performers on the classical lute and the balloon guitar, was hired as a tutor, thereby solidifying Beida’s reputation as the country’s preeminent center for music education.71 In early December 1917 a Calligraphy Society (Shufa yanjiuhui) was established to teach students how to “use calligraphy to refine the senses,” and a Painting Society (Huafa yanjiuhui) was also started. In 1922 the two were combined into a single Society for the Study of the Arts (Meishu yanjiuhui). Two months after the Painting Society was established, seventy-five students had become members. Like the Music Society, in time the Painting Society developed great vibrancy, and in keeping with Cai’s ecumenical impulse, it too encouraged the study of both Chinese and Western art. In addition to Chen Shizeng, the Painting Society hired other famous artists to serve as instructors, such as Xu Beihong, He Lüzhe, and Tang Dingzhi. In spring 1920 the Society staged an exhibit of student art works to raise both appreciation and money, and in June of the same year it published the first issue of Painting Magazine (Huixue zazhi).72 By early 1918 a variety of other extracurricular societies were springing up at Beida as well. The majority of these were financed by the university and required administrative approval before they could begin activities, but once underway they were run in a democratic fashion by their members. The groups were predicated on the idea that society could be regenerated only if individuals took the initiative to reform themselves first. The emphasis on self-cultivation and morality was nothing new in an intellectual culture so deeply influenced by Confucianism. A Meditation Society (Jingzuohui) was founded to “promote health and morality”; a Martial Arts Society (Jijihui) was formed to help students build up their physical strength and appreciation for China’s traditional arts of attack and defense; a Physical Education Society (Tiyuhui) was set up to promote exercise; and a Debate Society (Xiongbianhui) was created to help students hone their oratorical skills. The first person invited to address the Debate Society was Zhang Shizhao, who spoke on the importance of compromise (tiaohe).73 Many extracurricular societies were formed to encourage student cooperation. Life at Beida was very dispersed; students and professors tended to have little contact and most students kept to themselves or to small circles of friends. The plentiful announcements in the Beijing University Daily for meetings of co-provincial associations (tongxianghui),

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as well as memoir accounts, strongly suggest that students continued to cling to the “ ‘we’ against ‘them’ mentality” that for so long shaped Chinese society. The best evidence of this that I have seen comes from the 1918 diary of Su Jiarong. For Su, a philosophy major at Beida, the Guangxi co-provincial meeting hall in Beijing was an important point of reference—a place he went regularly either to socialize with classmates who had graduated from the same middle school, or to mourn the passing of important personages (such as teachers) from the home province.74 As had officials and merchants in bygone days, when new students first arrived in the capital they tended to seek out relatives or friends from their home regions who lived in Beijing, and frequently they initially lodged at inns set up by provincial associations representing their places of origin. At the start of each school year, Beida’s provincial associations threw welcoming parties for the new arrivals from their home provinces. A 1923 yearbook produced by the Beida Guangdong Students’ Association lists over five hundred members—including current professors and students as well as those who had already retired or graduated (some from the Jingshi daxuetang). It reveals that the existence of native-place associations encouraged Beida’s administrators to hold special entrance examinations in their provinces, and that they lobbied their own provincial governments to make financial assistance available to students already in the capital. Indeed, the associations were very important to students because it was through them that they received stipends from their provincial governments. Tao Dun, who served as the head of the Beijing University Shandong Students’ Association in the late 1920s, recalled that his primary responsibility was to inform the provincial Education Ministry how much stipend money it should send to Beida’s Shandong contingent each semester. In addition, graduates from Beida (and other universities) typically looked out for one another after they returned to their native places to look for work; connections made through a coprovincial association often proved very important in this regard.75 And as others have observed, nor was this traditional form of social networking significantly reduced by the time of the explosive political events of 1919—indeed, notices about co-provincial association meetings are common in the Beijing University Daily through the 1920s. In an article about Beida’s students published shortly after the May Fourth Movement, one student complained that the plethora of co-provincial and alumni associations at Beijing University were narrow in focus and obstructed social progress. Of course, widespread involvement of students from all provinces in the decidedly nationalistic May Fourth


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Movement clearly indicates that provincial identity existed in tension with, but was not exclusive of, a passionately felt national identity. This point is illustrated by the 1923 Guangdong Students’ Association yearbook, which, in addition to several essays on provincial self-government, also contains numerous student essays that address New Culture themes of national significance.76 If Beida was going to develop an identity that was greater than the sum of its parts, these lingering barriers had to be broken down, and students had to be given more opportunities to become acquainted with one another. This was one of the main purposes behind the proposal to start up a Student Savings Bank (Xuesheng chuxu yinhang). According to Professor Xu Baohuang, such an organization would enable students to develop a frugal attitude and to avoid spending on immoral activities at the same time that it would teach them how to work together. The student bank was approved by the faculty policy-making council and by early February 1918 professors and students alike were investing in it.77 The idea of student cooperation was inspired at least in part by Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s theory of “mutual aid” (huzhu). One can see the explicit influence of Kropotkin’s theory in Professor Hu Qianzhi’s December 1917 proposal to establish a Consumers’ Union (Xiaofei gongshe). The Union, which was in operation by early 1918, was based on the idea that when people worked together, contributing their individual talents and strengths to a common project, they would be able to promote gains that all could share in equally and that none could achieve on their own.78

symbolism, exhortation, and the forging of a new identity In November 1917 Cai Yuanpei and other school officials expressed the hope that Beijing University would improve dramatically enough over the next five years to merit, on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary (in 1922), a celebration at which students and faculty could take stock of their achievements. So it must have come as something of a surprise when a group of students proposed that a celebration be held on December 17, 1917, to mark Beida’s twentieth anniversary. But Cai agreed to the proposal. On December 16 the Daily printed a schedule of the following afternoon’s events and a reminder to students asking that they dress formally—in long robes and an outer jacket—so as to look neat for the group photograph that was to be taken before the ceremony.

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The celebration was replete with symbolism intended to reinforce a new identity for the university—something to which Cai Yuanpei paid great attention. Shortly after he took over as chancellor, for instance, Cai had commissioned Zhou Shuren (Lu Xun) to design a Beida badge that the students could attach to their gowns as a mark of honor.79 On December 17 more than a thousand people packed the auditorium at the law division to listen to a carefully coordinated series of exhortatory speeches that spoke volumes about the grand hopes Beida’s new leaders had for the university. As the crowd filed into the hall, each person was handed a copy of song lyrics written especially for the occasion by Professor Wu Mei, a pioneer in the academic study of opera scores.80 Once they had settled into their seats, Cai Yuanpei delivered the opening remarks. The chancellor compared Beijing University to Germany’s great universities, insisting that its relative youth in no way precluded it from quickly becoming equally great. The fact that Berlin University at one hundred was but a child beside the fivehundred-year-old Leipzig University had not prevented it from becoming Germany’s finest school, Cai said. Just as Berlin University had been able to develop quickly because of its location in its nation’s capital, so should Beijing University, located as it was in China’s capital, rapidly become a world-class institution. This was especially so because Beida had recently committed to the same academic focus as the best German universities. When Germany first established universities, theology, law, and medicine comprised the bulk of the curriculum. . . . The so-called philosophical disciplines . . . were treated as mere preparatory material. . . . This vision was shortsighted; practicality was prized over theory. . . . But after the eighteenth century a generation of scholars appeared, and theoretical study became much more developed. . . . When [Beida] was founded twenty years ago it consisted only of officials’ and teachers’ colleges, both of which were oriented entirely toward the practical. Later, after several reforms, the eight division system came into being, and the university had separate divisions for classics, politics and law, literature, natural science, medicine, agriculture, engineering, and commerce. . . . The organizational changes enacted this year have created a humanities and natural science focus similar to the German universities’ emphasis on philosophy. I hope the quality [of the humanities and natural sciences] will improve to such a point that they come to match those at Berlin University.81

Upon the conclusion of Cai’s remarks, a musician took to the stage to perform the song whose lyrics all in the audience had before them:


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This place, so beloved by men of talent, let me sing of it to you, my brothers: Think back to the dark days of the Qing dynasty when this school was founded, Jingshan [Mountain] radiated brilliance that day. [Then, when] the old education system was abolished, a spring wind blew across the lecture stage, bringing many talents on the fresh breeze. [Later,] when furious winds and thunder shook the realm, the chanting of the classics went on unabated. Up to now so much effort has been exerted to train new talent, but what has been achieved? Oh fortune, at this time Mr. Cai has become our chancellor, and looking back over it all, my how time has flown . . . twenty years already.82

The solemnity of that moment, with Cai Yuanpei’s inspiring words still ringing in their ears and the music flowing over them, was without a doubt calculated to instill a sense of mission in the students who filled the auditorium that day. Next, Minister of Education Fan Yuanlian rose to speak. Like Cai, he spoke to the potential greatness of Beijing University, once more implying that the school had a heroic destiny to fulfill. He reminded his audience that Beida had had its beginning in the soul-searching days following China’s loss to Japan in 1895, when all Chinese realized the necessity of rapid modernization. Fan went on to criticize the careerist mentality that had obtained under the imperial examination system, pointing out that it was only since Cai Yuanpei had become chancellor that students had begun to understand the importance of learning for its own sake. China, he said, was rich in resources and rich with potential, but it would become great again only if students applied themselves untiringly to fulfill the marvelous ambition with which this university had been brought into being after the loss to Japan. “On behalf of Chinese history display an uncommon brilliance. The responsibility is yours. Exert yourselves! Exert yourselves!”83 Throughout the day, speakers encouraged the students to realize their historic destiny by forging a collective identity and a unified sense of purpose. Hu Qianzhi offered an impassioned explanation of the concept of “mutual aid” and a plea to the students that they work to nourish a sense of community that could serve as a model for the nation. “The only way to develop a larger group consciousness,” Qu said, “is to foster cooperation among individuals and smaller groups. I think this can be accomplished by . . . promoting measures that provide for the good of the whole.” Next, Zhang Shizhao explained that progress would come about only if students learned the true meaning of the concept of “compro-

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mise.” Zhang identified the university as a place where the “spirit of compromise” (tiaohe zhi jingshen) must prevail, as the institution most directly responsible for the health of the nation. “There are people who say that a healthy society will produce a strong university, but I would argue that a healthy university produces a strong society.” In the final address, Professor Tao Menghe identified moral decline as one of the great problems facing Chinese society and stressed that the students had a duty to reverse that trend. He also stated in very clear terms that the university had a responsibility to produce upright leaders for the nation.84 In December 1917 there continued to be a great distance between ideals and reality; constant exhortations to study hard, cooperate with one another, and behave morally would not have been necessary if the students had been exhibiting such behavior. Indeed, Zhang Guotao noted that students with whom he shared a dormitory room at this time often came home late at night very drunk and very rowdy, much to the consternation of younger and more serious students like himself.85 The Beijing University Daily is also full of evidence that the culture of the university had not changed overnight. Students were still breaking university rules on a routine basis and, especially in the law division, both they and their professors continued to skip their classes whenever something more attractive came along. Nor had the students learned to live together harmoniously—two days after the twentieth-anniversary celebration, Cai Yuanpei published a notice on the front page of the Daily demanding that students cease posting anonymous placards with defamatory messages about one another on the dormitory walls.86 A few weeks after the ceremony, a group of young professors—Shen Yinmo, Liu Fu, Cheng Yansheng, Qian Xuantong, Zhou Zuoren, Wang Xinggong, Ma Youyu, Liu Wendian, Tao Menghe, Chen Duxiu, Zhu Xizu, Zhu Zonglai, Zhu Jiahua, and Chen Daqi—submitted a plan to the policy-making council that made provision for a “university club” (julebu). They hoped such a club would enable students to overcome divisions caused by their different provincial backgrounds and to build a sense of community based on their participation in a range of morally uplifting activities, such as musical performances and poetry readings. Since professors would be encouraged to participate, it would also create opportunities for faculty members and students to have greater contact.87 Not only would the club provide students with healthy forms of entertainment that would not require them to spend extravagant sums of money, it was also conceived as a way of keeping them away from the


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less savory attractions of the city, a way, in other words, of making the university a world apart. So, too, even more explicitly, were the second and third parts of the proposal. These called for the creation of a “university district” (daxue quyu) limited to Beida’s students, professors, and employees; and the adoption of a university dress code which would lend a sense of orderliness and signify that “the university has already entered the ranks of the world’s universities.” The drafters of these plans were clearly influenced by foreign examples and at one point specifically invoked Cambridge University. Because Beida was located in a highly urban setting, the proposal for a university district would have meant a dramatic change. What the planners seemed to be striving to create in the heart of the Chinese capital was something akin to the calm, verdant setting of a European-style university town, or along the lines of the Americanfunded Qinghua and Yanjing campuses in the Beijing suburbs. The university district was to be an autonomous, virtually self-sufficient community, complete with its own hospital, stores, park, and tree-lined streets. Ease of communication was to be assured by the installation of an intradistrict telephone network. Matters of discipline, order, and hygiene were to be referred to university authorities rather than to the Beijing police or other relevant city officials. Moreover, the university district was conceived explicitly as a model for other communities to follow, and as a way of marking off a kind of sacred space within which the university population could pursue its high-minded business without distraction from the hustle and bustle of the city that surrounded it. And to make absolutely clear who belonged within this sacred domain, professors and students alike would be required to dress to code. The style and height of their hats, the length of their sleeves, and the type of fabric they could wear, all of these were specified, as were the occasions when particular dress standards would apply.88 Two days after the proposal to establish the university club, the university district, and the dress code was made public, Cai Yuanpei announced the formation of the Beijing University Society for the Promotion of Morality (Beijing daxue jindehui). This society was modeled on similar groups that Cai had established in 1912, together with Wu Zhihui, Li Shizeng, Wang Jingwei, Zhang Ji, and others.89 Members were to become model citizens by declaring what they were against (prostitution, gambling, taking concubines); who they were not (government officials, members of parliament); and what they were willing to live without

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(opium, wine, and meat). To qualify for membership, one had to at a minimum foreswear visiting prostitutes, gambling, and taking concubines. Those who also pledged not to become a government official or a parliamentarian were entitled to a higher ranking within the Society. If, in addition, they swore not to smoke opium, drink wine, or eat meat, they qualified for elite ranking.90 Perhaps not surprisingly, given Cai Yuanpei’s supreme admiration for the late-Ming literatus Liu Zongzhou,91 there was in the Society to Promote Morality a strong emphasis on asceticism that clearly calls to mind Neo-Confucian “precepts for character discipline.” Writing of these precepts, especially as they were evident in the statecraft tradition, Chang Hao has stressed the critical importance of “self-scrutiny” and “the exercise of control over desires and emotions.” Both of these would have been required of professors or students who wished to become members of the Morality Society. Frederic Wakeman has observed that there were “two contradictory concepts of intellectual association” in the late imperial period, one deprecating “parties” or “factions” as selfish and partial, and the other sanctioning “comradely groups by quoting Confucius’ disciple, Tseng-tzu: ‘The superior man on grounds of culture meets with his friends, and by their friendship helps his virtue.’ ” The Beijing University Society for the Promotion of Morality tapped into this latter tradition.92 In calling attention to the Confucian and Neo-Confucian echoes in the manifesto for the Beijing University Society for the Promotion of Morality, I do not intend to suggest that Cai Yuanpei and the other university leaders who promoted the society were espousing merely conventional moral ideas. The Confucian influence was but one aspect of the larger moral framework that Cai and his colleagues were seeking to construct at the National University, one which also drew heavily on Western moral concepts, especially as they were expressed during the French Revolution. But there is no mistaking the degree to which the morality that Beida’s new leaders sought to engender was tinged with nostalgia for the more certain ethical standards of the late imperial past. In a very selfconscious way, Cai Yuanpei was attempting to transform the university into a model community, a sanctuary for upright scholars pursuing the higher things in life. Yet there was, I believe, an unresolved tension in the chancellor’s mind between his conception of the university as an exclusively academic entity that should keep its distance from society, and his belief that it was a uniquely endowed social institution with responsibilities that reached


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beyond the classroom. Cai believed universities should be devoted to research before all else, but the language that he employed in his manifesto for the morality society, like that which he used in his inaugural address a year earlier, indicates that his concerns went well beyond academic research. As far as he was concerned, China’s fate rested with intellectuals’ willingness to undertake a program of serious moral reform. He said this clearly in the manifesto for the Society for the Promotion of Morality: “Today it is common for people to say: in the West social morality [gongde] is stressed and in the East personal morality [side] is stressed; it is also believed that if social morality is practiced to the utmost then it is not necessary to pay attention to personal morality.” But this is false, Cai proclaimed, since everybody is a member of society. If one member is corrupt, this cannot but have a negative effect on the whole. “Sima Qian said: ‘Xia’s collapse was due to Mei Xi [the wife of the last ruler], and Yin’s collapse to Da Ji [the concubine of the last ruler].’ . . . Napoleon was distracted by lust and Prussian militarism was consequently allowed to take root. If personal morality is not cultivated, catastrophe will befall society; examples of this sort are too numerous to count.”93 In crystal clear terms Cai stated that Beida’s students and professors had a responsibility to band together like brave scholars of the past who spoke out honestly and fearlessly when moral rot threatened the country. Upon my return to China [in 1916] I went to Jiangsu and Zhejiang and observed that the talented educators and businessmen all visit prostitutes and gamble when they socialize, and my heart was wounded. When I got to Beijing I realized that such behavior is even more prevalent here. During dark times in the past there were always a few pure men (qingliu) willing to battle corruption, such as the partisans of the Eastern Han, the ethical scholars of the Southern Song and the Donglin scholars of the late Ming. All of them cried out ceaselessly even at the bleakest hour. But today the few men who are struggling against the prevailing current are alone, afraid to join with their comrades to correct unhealthy modern customs. . . . In this community of two thousand people I would like to establish [a model for society].94

Cai’s references to the most celebrated instances of qingyi-style heroic protest in Chinese history leave no doubt that the creation of the Society for the Promotion of Morality was an act with political implications, one that pointed to traditional modes of scholarly remonstrance as a way of compensating for the all-too-apparent failure of China’s attempt at Western-style constitutional government. By linking the issue of individual moral reform with that of group solidarity, and by supporting ex-

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tracurricular activities designed to nurture a sense of common purpose, Cai Yuanpei and the other new leaders of the university provided a crucial opening for professors and students who felt less ambivalent than he did about interpreting Beida’s educational mission in an explicitly political fashion.

chapter 5

The Insistent Pull of Politics

The tension between the vision of the university as a cloistered sanctuary dedicated to academic research and self-cultivation on the one hand, and as a burgeoning center of political and cultural activism on the other, continued to mount in 1918 and 1919. Cai Yuanpei clearly believed that fundamental cultural and social reform was a long-term process built on a foundation of new and reordered knowledge, but he also believed that intellectuals were the rightful leaders of the nation in a broader, moral sense. This latter, highly Confucian assumption led him to pursue an educational culture that encouraged members of the campus community to think in terms of their responsibility to the nation as a whole. Education was important for its own sake, but it was also critically important to the improvement of society, the nation, and the world. Moreover, Cai believed that learning that took place in laboratories and libraries would become more meaningful if it were combined with experience of and concern for the world beyond the scholar’s study. In the short term, Cai Yuanpei balanced these different visions to his own satisfaction. The conception of the intellectual that predominated at Beida on the eve of the May Fourth Movement, therefore, was neither wholly old-fashioned, in the sense of the intellectual as the moral conscience of the people and servant to the state, nor wholly modern, in terms of the intellectual as professionalized specialist. It combined elements of both. The result, especially given the turbulent state of China’s domestic politics and the precarious position the country occupied in the 147

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international arena, was a highly creative and combustible mix. The dividing lines between education and politics, and between culture and politics, never unambiguous to begin with, began to draw a great deal of conscious and unconscious attention from members of the faculty and students alike, becoming in the process both subject and site of contention. The policy of hiring scholars with widely varying educational backgrounds and worldviews, of letting one hundred schools of thought contend, led to the creative exchange that it was intended to, but it also fed into the politicization of education and culture. Academic debates about culture rapidly became vehicles for fierce disagreements about politics, and it was not long before some people at Beida shed all pretense of gentlemanly politeness to express themselves in highly sharp and divisive ways.

university and society The emphasis on moral uplift and academic rigor continued in spring 1918. The University Daily published lengthy articles on the path to moral advancement and the evils of prostitution, as well as a letter of strong praise for the Society for the Promotion of Morality from the leader of a Japanese association dedicated to moral renewal. By May 1918 some seventy professors, ninety staff members, and three hundred students (roughly one-fifth of the student body) had joined the morality society.1 The Beida library, which Li Dazhao took over from his mentor, Zhang Shizhao, witnessed dramatic improvements. During his first year as head librarian, Li Dazhao revised the regulations governing borrowed materials, expanded the foreign-language holdings, built up the journal collection, and ran regular notices in the Daily announcing new acquisitions. The library also benefited from the expanded space it was allotted in the lower level of the university’s newest building, the so-called “Hong lou” (Red Building), which was named for the color of its brick exterior and was one of the tallest structures in Beijing.2 Since it was home to the vibrant humanities departments and because under Li Dazhao’s direction the library developed into one of the most lively centers of intellectual activity on campus, the modern, five-story building rapidly became the center of life at Beida. These improvements notwithstanding, the ambitious plans to create a university district (daxue quyu) complete with a park and tree-lined streets never came to fruition. For the most part, Beida remained a drab, architecturally undistinguished place.3 Its location in the heart of the cap-


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ital put students and professors in close proximity to the imperial gardens and parks that were gradually being opened to the public during these years, thereby mitigating the plainness of the university’s architecture and layout. However, the city’s ugly side was also on view, as is indicated by this description of a student’s route traveling “along a canal, full of rotten slippery tubs and the dead bodies of cats, past trees so ancient that they were nothing more than dusty bark, through spacious courts of former princes, into the meeting room of the university.”4 At the same time that they worked to build up the university’s physical plant and to foster a more serious academic environment, Beida’s leaders made a concerted effort to combat its reputation for exclusivity and elitism. In February 1918 Hu Shi established the Fulfill the Promise Society (Chengmei xuehui), whose stated purpose was to give financial assistance to “morally upright, intelligent, and healthy students who could not pay for themselves,” so as to “increase the country’s talent and decrease the [negative effects of] social class.” Cai Yuanpei, Zhang Shizhao, and Chen Duxiu were particularly strong supporters of the project, and in May 1918, by which time faculty members had contributed a substantial sum of money to it, the university’s policy-making council voted to incorporate the Fulfill the Promise Society as an official organization. Over the next several years, it provided financial help to many students, including Mao Zishui, Xu Deheng, and Zhang Guotao.5 Beida also began to allow students who could not afford to pay tuition to audit classes for a nominal fee. Whether in their late teens or their forties, auditors (pangtingsheng) were made to feel welcome. Auditors who did well in their classes were allowed to change their status to that of regular students. In fall 1917 Chen Duxiu published a notice in the Daily encouraging would-be auditors to persist in their efforts to get into classes even if they were told no seats were left. Xu Qinwen, who sat in on classes, recalled that though Beida was “a gathering place for young men from wealthy families of every province,” his classmates nevertheless treated him, a laid-off elementary school teacher who dressed in simple, mended clothes, with great respect and kindness. A far more famous auditor was Mao Zedong, who, though he felt snubbed by highly accomplished students such as Fu Sinian and Luo Jialun, was offered a job in the library by Li Dazhao and absorbed the heady atmosphere at May Fourth Beida. In time the number of auditors grew very large; at their height, these students actually outnumbered formally enrolled Beijing University students by three to one.6 In some cases, demand from nonregistered stu-

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dents was so great that lectures had to be moved to larger rooms in order to accommodate the numbers. Liang Shuming recalled that while ninety students were officially enrolled in his course on Confucian thought, some two hundred people packed into the room nevertheless, and that the ratio of auditors to regular students in Hu Shi’s classes was even greater than that.7 In addition to those already named, others who audited classes at Beida at this time included the writers Hu Yepin, Ding Ling, and Shen Congwen, and the Communist activists Qu Qiubai, He Mengxiong, Rou Shi, and Li Weisen. Needless to say, such people added to the intellectual vitality of the university. Nowhere was the commitment to make education widely accessible more in evidence than in the founding of a program for the university’s workers. In January 1918 a group of Beida students wrote to Cai Yuanpei to praise a servant in their dormitory and to encourage the chancellor to help him receive an education. Cai published the students’ letter in the Daily and gave his full backing to their suggestion. Explaining that Chinese had long believed it disgraceful for students to perform menial tasks to support themselves in their studies, Cai pointed out that the practice was common in the United States and Japan and was in no way a cause for shame. He stated that since staff members (zhiyuan) and servants (puyi) both engaged in work, neither was superior or inferior, and he insisted that students cease referring to the men who worked in their dormitories as “servants” (tingchai) and instead adopt the term “worker friend” (gongyou). Cai concluded by announcing plans for a Night School for University Workers (Xiaoyi yeban).8 Those plans soon came to fruition: on March 21, 1918, the Daily published a list of the subjects to be taught at the night school and called on students to volunteer to teach there. Since many of the workers were functionally illiterate, substantial attention was to be paid to basic reading and writing, though additional courses were to be offered in mathematics, science, moral cultivation, and foreign languages (English, French, Esperanto). On April 14 a ceremony was held to mark the opening of the school. More than 230 of the men who prepared tea and opened classroom doors for professors, or who sometimes bowed before the students in hopes of a bigger tip, attended the festivities. They were dressed in long gowns of the sort worn by the university’s students and each of them held a bouquet of flowers.9 Two years later, Cai Yuanpei lent his enthusiastic support to the Commoners’ Night School (Pingmin yexiao), another student-run school for people who ordinarily would not have had an opportunity to receive an education. As he had at the opening ceremony for the school for Beida’s


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workers, Cai gave an address at the opening of the Commoners’ Night School. Once, a wooden tablet that very much resembled a tiger-headed tablet [hutoupai10] hung outside . . . Beijing University. When people saw it they all believed this was a most important place which they were not allowed to enter. . . . This kind of thinking was especially pronounced among the people who lived and worked close to Beijing University. Now that tablet has been removed. . . . “Commoner” means “everyone is equal.” When in the past only university students could receive an education, and outsiders could not, that was not equality.

The tension between Cai’s populist beliefs and his paternalistic elitism comes through in this speech. “Why have university students opened this Commoners’ Night School?” he asked. “Because, realizing that they already have knowledge and that their brothers beside them do not, their hearts ache. It’s as though, seeing one’s own brothers going hungry, seeing that so many young men and women are hungry and have no food to eat . . . they’ve come to realize how unfortunate such people are, and so immediately opened this Commoners’ Night School.”11 What all of this makes plain is that the new men in charge at Beida considered training experts and grooming morally upright individuals to be only part of what the National University was about. The university’s other duty was to send scholars to the public as ambassadors of “enlightened” thinking. However, the attempt to nurture a commitment to social action and educational populism made it increasingly difficult to determine where educational concerns left off and political ones began.

sharpening the differences Not surprisingly, it was New Youth that sounded the death-knell for the vision of the intellectual as one who stood apart from the compromising world of politics. In January 1918 Chen Duxiu relinquished sole control over New Youth to an editorial board consisting of himself, Hu Shi, Qian Xuantong, Gao Yihan, Li Dazhao, Liu Fu, and Tao Menghe. Impatient to provoke controversy and to increase sales, the editorial board published the entire January 1918 issue in punctuated vernacular Chinese. The publication of a serious journal of cultural criticism in the vernacular was a watershed event.12 From that moment, the overpowering anger and frustration that lay behind the New Culture group’s urgent iconoclasm and its members’ quest to lead China into modernity propelled them to drive a wedge between themselves and more conservative intel-

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lectuals. As they moved to seize power within the cultural field, New Culture supporters became more willing to transgress the unwritten code dictating that intellectuals engage with one another respectfully, whether in person or in print. The tone of discourse among scholars became sharper. Proponents of the New Culture began to ignore the often subtle nature of the differences between themselves and those they attacked in favor of black-and-white caricatures that served to ridicule their foes and to put them on the defensive.13 An example of this can be seen in the March 1918 issue of New Youth, which ran a concocted epistolary exchange between two of its editors, Qian Xuantong and Liu Fu, for the purpose of smoking out and enraging the so-called “old clique,” especially former Beida professor Lin Shu. Under the invented name “Wang Jingxuan” (the characters for which implied reverence for Confucius), Qian Xuantong submitted a rambling diatribe in unpunctuated classical Chinese in which he made a series of reactionary attacks on the New Culture leaders, accusing them of committing offenses against the Confucian family system and the Chinese language, and of making unwarranted attacks on respected literary figures such as Lin Shu. Liu Fu responded at length, the force of his argument and the clarity of his vernacular Chinese effectively making a fool out of Wang Jingxuan, the dummy representative of literary Chinese and old-fashioned thinking. Before the publication of Qian and Liu’s exchange, proponents of literary reform had made it known that they were in disagreement with scholars who subscribed to either the Tongcheng or the Wenxuan literary schools, but they had thus far not been successful in their effort to provoke their opponents into public argument. The Wang Jingxuan letter, partly because of its mean-spirited tone, changed that, and in subsequent issues New Youth published additional articles that signaled that the New Culture group was spoiling for a fight.14 Another example of the aggressiveness with which the New Culture partisans approached matters at this time can be seen in an April 1918 article on literary reform for New Youth written by Hu Shi. Hu opened with a dismissive attack on those who continued to subscribe to traditional literary styles. “When I look carefully I find that those who belong to the old literary cliques are hardly worth fussing over. The literature of the Tongcheng, Wenxuan, and Jiangxi schools, the metered rhymes of the Mengchuang School and the novels of the Liaozhai zhiyi School— none of them are important enough to destroy,” wrote Hu. “Once ‘true,’ ‘living’ literature comes into being, ‘false’ and ‘dead’ literature will go extinct naturally.” The following month, in the same issue of New Youth


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in which Lu Xun published “Diary of a Madman,” Li Dazhao adopted a slightly less antagonistic stance in an article entitled “The New! The Old!” Li argued that Beijing society was full of glaring contradictions owing to the coexistence of old-fashioned and modern states of mind. When I walk in the area of Qian Gate I often have the sensation that those narrow little streets are filled with implements from countless ages. . . . The noise of hooves and of wheels, the blaring of sirens, the sounds of automobiles and horses, and of rickshaw men cursing one another, all get jumbled together in a confusing mix.15

In these circumstances, Li Dazhao wrote, attempts at communication often resembled conversations between people from different historical ages. Li concluded with an appeal to youth to show tolerance and to share the fruits of the modern world with “crippled and decadent old people” (canfei tuibai de laoren). Like Hu Shi, Li Dazhao treated those who disagreed with him as pitiable, as though they did not even deserve to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, the generous tone of Li’s conclusion was too much for Qian Xuantong, the man who called the Tongcheng and Wenxuan schools absurd (miu) and monstrous (yao). In a note published together with Li’s article, Qian wrote: “Why should we invite [conservatives] to share the fruits of our . . . creative efforts? Can you still stand to look them in the face and endure their wrath?” Advocates of literary reform focused on the Tongcheng and Wenxuan schools because they disagreed with the literary canons upheld by those traditions. Furthermore, in attacking those schools they were seeking to position themselves advantageously by making a political point, given that both schools, and especially the Tongcheng School, were associated with political power and allied to reactionary forces. The Tongcheng School had lost its leading position at Beijing University by this time, yet continued to enjoy patronage from the Duan Qirui government, especially from Duan’s powerful chief-of-staff, Xu Shuzheng, a great admirer of Lin Shu. As Leo Ou-fan Lee has observed, the “assertive polemic style” of the New Culture leaders was highly effective, in that it enabled them to establish a degree of cultural hegemony that persisted through much of the twentieth century.16 However, while little love was lost between figures such as Lin Shu and proponents of the New Culture, the cleavages that separated the “new” camp from the “old” were not all abrupt and sharp. Many faculty members identified with the “new” camp had been decisively influenced earlier in their lives by Lin Shu’s translations. Moreover, individ-

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uals such as Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, and Li Dazhao cultivated the polite manners and dignified air of the traditional scholar, reducing the degree to which they alienated “old” camp colleagues who may have vehemently disagreed with them intellectually. Indeed, many scholars who disagreed with one another about literary and political matters remained close friends, such as Chen Duxiu and the leading figure in the Wenxuan School, Liu Shipei, or else, like Hu Shi and Gu Hongming, they displayed an attitude of mutual respect.17 Nor was the New Culture camp without internal rifts. Qian Xuantong teamed up with Liu Fu on the Wang Jingxuan exchange, but that did not prevent him from joining with Hu Shi to ridicule Liu Fu—a recent convert from the so-called Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School—for being intellectually shallow and insufficiently Westernized.18 Nevertheless, in a broad sense the years 1918–20 were a turning point, a time when intellectuals’ differing views on politics and culture began to appear more important than what united them as members of a common literati. Politeness and respect did not evaporate all at once, but the culturally expressed political tensions that came to the fore at this time prefigured the more serious fracturing of the intellectual community that came about in the mid-1920s, when Chinese politics became even more divisive and bloody. Naturally, public displays of nasty rhetoric by their teachers emboldened some students to adopt an aggressive stance of their own. But this did not necessarily translate into an immediate rush of support for those on the faculty who stood for cultural radicalism. Students in the humanities division were well versed in classical Chinese and prided themselves on their mastery of the Classics, even to the point of ridiculing professors who made mistakes in their interpretations of texts. For them, it was not intuitive that they should reject the heritage that they had spent so much time studying and for which many of them had great love. Most students continued to cultivate a personal appearance that bespoke a romantic attachment to the look and manner of the traditional Chinese scholar. Long beards were common, and most of them dressed in blue scholarly gowns. As Zhang Guotao recalled, in the years just before the May Fourth Movement the majority of Beida’s students still revered the basic tenets of Confucianism and opposed the use of vernacular Chinese. Indeed, when Hu Shi took up his professorship at age 26 a number of students openly doubted whether he was qualified for the position; it was not until the influential Fu Sinian defended him (unbeknownst to Hu) that the young, American-trained scholar began to gain acceptance.19 Indeed, culturally conservative scholars boasted large student follow-


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ings of their own. Huang Kan, a brilliant individual with a fiery and charismatic personality who refused to join the Society for the Promotion of Morality on the grounds that he did not want to be a hypocrite— the implication being that others who had joined that Society were ignoring its terms—was a very popular figure. Huang very much enjoyed drink and often made a spectacle of himself, whether this involved shouting at his rickshaw puller as he passed through the university’s gate or chastising students for bowing instead of kowtowing to him on the occasion of his birthday (Huang himself kowtowed to his most revered teachers, Zhang Taiyan and Liu Shipei). Before the new literature movement, Huang had used his classes as a forum in which to rail at the Tongcheng School, but after 1918 hardly a class went by without him launching into an attack on colleagues who supported the vernacular language movement. He was particularly critical of Qian Xuantong, whom he accused of bringing disgrace to their common master, Zhang Taiyan, and whose lifetime work, he claimed in front of his students, was equivalent to what he himself could complete in a single night.20 Huang attracted many of Beida’s best students into his circle, and Liu Shipei, the onetime anarchist leader who was often seen carrying a large palm-leaf fan, was also highly popular with students. Unlike Huang Kan, Liu refused to criticize his New Culture colleagues. He was willing to countenance their new ideas and the vernacular style in which they expressed them, but he himself “left a place at the top of the literary hierarchy for a prose based on the parallel prose developed during the Six Dynasties period.”21

dress rehearsal, may 1918 Because most studies of the May Fourth era focus on progressive intellectuals and student leaders, it is tempting to think of students at this time as having been thoroughly radicalized. Yet this was not necessarily the case. It is probable that, in one way or another, virtually every student chafed under the strictures of the still potent Confucian value system, but the number who were prepared to move from personal dissatisfaction within, say, a family context, to a searching philosophical critique was still small. By spring 1918 a handful of Beida’s students had become increasingly sensitized to the issues being discussed in the pages of New Youth, but the vast majority did not rush to get involved in the cultural debate. Indeed, for most students, cultural radicalization followed on the heels of, or developed in conjunction with, heightened con-

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cern over politics. Politics led to culture and culture back to politics: sooner or later, the ardent nationalist was likely to conclude that cultural attitudes and political practices mutually informed one another. In other words, as during the last decade of Qing rule, when their commitment to national salvation drew students’ attention to the relationship between politics and culture, so too were the political and cultural agendas of the late 1910s and early 1920s dialectically intertwined. As Chow Tse-tsung recognized, the key moment came in May 1918, when students learned to their outrage that Prime Minister Duan Qirui had consented to negotiate a Military Mutual Assistance Convention with the Japanese government.22 Chinese students who had boycotted their classes and left Japan in protest of the agreement between the Chinese and Japanese governments spurred Beida’s students to action. Settled mostly in Shanghai, the returned students brought a strong feeling for China’s national interests and, urged on by Sun Yatsen, the determination to organize a China-wide movement of protest against the Beiyang government. In late April, four student representatives from Hunan traveled to Beijing, where they convened a meeting for students in the capital at the Hunan Provincial Meeting Hall. At this time, the political activities of students in the capital were still usually organized through co-provincial societies and focused on issues of interest only to that portion of the student body from the particular province in question. After May 1918 the focus turned decidedly more national in scope. A clear example of this evolutionary process is the transformation of the “Shaanxi Students United in the Capital” (Shaanxi lüjing xuesheng lianhehui) group into the “Common Progress Society” (Gongjin she), the latter of which moved beyond native-place concerns to become a leading New Culture advocacy group at Beida.23 On May 20, 1918, Beida student leaders convened a meeting to discuss an appropriate response to the Duan government’s agreement to sign a Military Mutual Assistance Convention with Japan. The following day, despite Cai Yuanpei’s fervent protests, the first large-scale student protest of the Republican era unfolded on the streets of the capital. While groundbreaking, the protest borrowed from a well-established repertoire of remonstrance. The students chose eight representatives to deliver their entreaty; as they did so, the rest of the contingent, two thousand strong, waited silently outside the Xinhua Gate. So well behaved were they, in fact, that passersby had no idea that a demonstration was taking place. When President Feng Guozhang told the students that their petition was a matter for the State Council, they proceeded to the offices


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of Duan Qirui, but Duan refused to meet them. Unsure what to do next, the students milled about for several hours before finally dispersing in frustration.24 Embarrassed by the students’ refusal to abide by his attempt to prevent them from demonstrating and wishing to show that he regretted the disturbance, Cai Yuanpei submitted his resignation. All of the deans of the various colleges, including Chen Duxiu, resigned as well.25 Years later, Cai wrote that he believed students ought to make learning their top priority and to forego the organization of political groups. Students could get involved in politics if they were over twenty years of age and if they had a special interest in politics, but he wanted them to do so in their own name so that they did not involve the university. Once it became clear that the Ministry of Education did not intend to pursue the matter and that a significant number of students so regretted having jeopardized Beida’s stability that they apologized to the chancellor and led a movement to have him reinstated, Cai and the four deans agreed to resume their offices.26 But the fact that these events lasted for only a few days and were entirely peaceful does not detract from their significance. For better or worse, the National University had become directly involved in politics. Over the next several weeks, the most passionately nationalistic students joined with colleagues from other schools to found the Student Society for National Salvation (Xuesheng jiuguohui). In June, students in Beijing also established the Young China Association (Shaonian zhongguo xuehui), which developed into one of the most important nationwide, progressive student organizations. Alarmed by these developments, especially because the May demonstration in Beijing had generated a solidarity protest in Shanghai, in July 1918 the Beiyang government accused the students of engaging in behavior outside their proper sphere and banned the Society for National Salvation. This did little to stop the rising political tide, however; when classes resumed in the fall, the students continued to organize.27 Nor were students the only ones to move in a decidedly activist direction. In the lead article of the July 15, 1918, issue of New Youth, entitled “Political Problems in Today’s China,” Chen Duxiu offered a multifaceted definition of politics and made it clear that he wished to see students engaged in the most fundamental issues of the day. My colleagues and the readers of this journal have made it known that they do not think I should discuss politics. They say the current generation of youth should focus on reform through learning, on the fundamental overhaul of society, that there is no need to talk politics. They say this journal

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was founded to guide young people, not to comment on current affairs, and ask why it is now necessary to discuss politics. Oh my! They are so very wrong. There are three kinds of people who talk about politics. The first type is those who hold office; politics is their career, and the politics they discuss have to do with trivial administrative matters within the government—they have little to do with the political issues that the youth of this generation is talking about. The second type is those whose careers fall outside the official sphere; all citizens who have political rights should talk about political issues large and small. The third type is young people who are studying. They can safely ignore administrative issues, but with regard to political questions having to do with nothing less than the survival of the nation and the race, how can they possibly pretend to be deaf and dumb?

Following this bold statement, Chen declared that he no longer believed cultural questions could be neatly divorced from political ones, and that as far as he was concerned the need to raise “consciousness” was at heart a political matter. This was the case not only because those who were trying to address cultural issues were doing so in a context shaped by politicians who were willing to use violence to achieve their desired ends, or who would do anything to subordinate the country to single-party rule, but also because “new” and “old” thinking arose from fundamentally opposed, holistic worldviews in which politics and culture were organically related. If we decide to preserve the old ways then we should use them consistently, and should not waste money sending students abroad, establishing schools, or studying the West. But if we decide to reform and to adopt Western ways, we should do so thoroughly, no longer permitting falsehoods about national learning and national character to create confusion.28

Of course, Chen left no room for doubt as to which choice he thought the country should make, concluding with the assertion that national affairs are always shaped by the theoretical doctrines countries embrace, and that absurd Chinese doctrines (beimiu xueshuo) had long since lost their credibility.

the indeterminate boundary between education and politics Cai Yuanpei and his colleagues told Beida’s students that it was their duty to be moral exemplars and intellectual pioneers. Though he also made allusions to political and social action, the chancellor clearly did not endorse the May 1918 protest, nor, it would seem, would he have en-


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couraged the politicization of student life that Chen Duxiu called for. Yet Cai could not prevent the drift toward political involvement and, in fact, contributed to it through his own actions. In fall 1918 he continued to send mixed signals, telling students that their primary responsibility was to their books and to self-cultivation, even as he threw his support ever more forcefully behind the idea that the National University had a responsibility to enlist public opinion behind new ways of thinking and being. In September 1918 Cai Yuanpei delivered an address reiterating that a university is a place to do research, not to acquire credentials, and that true scholars pay as much attention to personal cultivation as they do to their studies. The fact that other speakers dwelled on the same points that day indicates that the dominant culture of the university was still characterized by the attitudes and habits that Cai and his colleagues had set out to change some two years earlier.29 This is borne out by other evidence as well. In October 1918 a student named Liang Shaowen published a letter in the school newspaper complaining that classmates who had enrolled in the Society for the Promotion of Morality were nevertheless continuing to gamble and to visit prostitutes.30 The Daily also reported on the large number of students who skipped class, a problem that in the law division was no doubt exacerbated by professors who failed to show up to deliver their lectures. The inescapable truth, as seen in memoirs by students who attended Beida at this time, was that students’ families typically expected their sons to parlay their diplomas from the “highest school” into lucrative bureaucratic postings.31 But the effort to combat careerism and to inculcate new values did not slacken. In November 1918, in his foreword to the first issue of the Beijing University Monthly, Beida’s earliest journal devoted exclusively to the dissemination of academic research, Cai Yuanpei once again stated that the university would reach its full potential only if it dedicated itself to the creation of new knowledge. He also indicated that he hoped the Monthly would counteract the increasing politicization of culture by persuading those on the outside who disapproved of “new ideas” that under his watch the National University was a place where all schools of thought were given a fair hearing. “A university is a place of learning that embraces all scholarly writing and enlists the services of every school of thought. The Doctrine of the Mean . . . expresses this idea when it states ‘All things are nourished together without doing one another damage. The seasons, the sun and the moon turn without colliding.’ ” Cai also stated that openness to various viewpoints was a general rule where free-

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dom of thought obtained: “The Monthly will publish all sorts of views so that readers outside the university will realize this school is committed to inclusiveness, that it is not shackled by the old view that there is only one [acceptable] school of thought.32 It was Cai’s hope and expectation that openness and inclusiveness would lead to intellectually valuable disagreements and discovery. By winter 1918–19 a limited but critically important segment of Beida’s students was engaging the broad world of ideas with a spirit of intellectual openness. The newly founded Philosophy Study Society (Zhexue yanjiuhui), in which students studied both Chinese and Western philosophy, became one of the most popular and well-attended extracurricular organizations.33 Luo Jialun later conveyed a sense of the excited, politicized energy of the time. Besides talking heatedly in our rooms from morning to evening, we also gathered in two other places. One was the . . . Chinese Department’s faculty lounge, where Qian Xuantong could often be found; the other was in the librarian’s office. In those two places there was no barrier between the professors and the students, no standing on ceremony. Whoever showed up jumped into the debate, everybody raised points and everybody had to face criticism. Those two rooms filled with people every afternoon after three o’clock. At the time we all called the faculty lounge the “Crowd of Speakers’ Hall” . . . the vast majority of the people there were southerners. The [librarian’s office] was known as the “Hall Where You Cannot Be Filled Up,” and most of the people there were northerners. Those two rooms had a true air of academic freedom about them. Everybody approached [the conversation] with a sense of abandon and when they got caught up in discussion they lost all sense of time. Sometimes people would leave [one room] and head straight for [the other], talking constantly along the way. The “Hall Where You Cannot Be Filled Up” had an advantage in that it was Li Dazhao’s office at the library, and thus the place to go to see the newest books, which then became fodder for our conversation. The literary revolution emerged from those two rooms, as did many of the attacks on the old society and old thinking.34

In early October 1918 Chen Duxiu promised financial aid to Luo Jialun and friends of his who wanted to capture the excitement of these conversations by publishing a journal devoted to critical thinking, science, and literary reform. Hu Shi agreed to serve as an adviser to the group, and Li Dazhao granted its members space in the library. The students named their journal New Tide (Xin chao).35 Also in October, Xu Deheng, Yi Keyi, and other leaders of the May 1918 protests founded the Citizen Magazine Society (Guomin zazhi she),


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which, like the nationally oriented Young China Association with which it was closely affiliated, strove to reach out to intellectuals of all persuasions. Citizen accepted contributions from all places on the political and cultural spectrum and in no way offered a wholesale endorsement of New Youth-style cultural iconoclasm. Many students involved with the journal went on to play leading roles in the Communist Party, but others followed a far less radical political course. According to Xu Deheng, Citizen was guided by two key ideas: opposition to imperialism and support for classical Chinese. Comfortable with these positions, cultural moderates and conservatives such as Zhang Taiyan, Ma Xulun, Liu Shipei, and Huang Kan supported the journal, along with radical figures like Li Dazhao.36 In his preface to the first issue of Citizen, published in January 1919, Cai Yuanpei made clear that he endorsed the journal’s patriotic mission but also that he was concerned about the way students were using their time. “If the sole duty of students is to study, how can they forfeit their time and energy for learning to get involved with the type of ordinary citizen’s undertaking represented by this magazine?” Cai’s answer was that the students were compelled by their ardent patriotism and could do no less. The words he used echoed those he used in his manifesto for the Society for the Promotion of Morality to describe the “few pure men” (qingliu) of the past who during dark times displayed the courage to battle corruption and fight on behalf of the nation: “The vast majority of China’s citizens are indifferent to our country’s plight, but a small number of strong souls have now taken it upon themselves to serve the country. Those who understand this type of nationalism and who are sincere in their efforts comprise a very small minority.”37 Like a segment of Beida’s student body and faculty, Cai was being drawn inexorably toward a form of activism bordering directly on the political. As patriotic and cosmopolitan intellectuals, he and his colleagues believed China would be lost without them. This sensibility is plain to see in the texts of speeches that Beida professors delivered at a two-day, public teach-in that Cai organized in November 1918 to celebrate the end of the First World War. In launching the event, which was conducted at Tiananmen Square and at the Central Park (Zhongyang gongyuan), Cai explained that National University professors had a responsibility to do more than teach a few students. They must find a way to offer every citizen a taste of university education, Cai said, as was done at so-called “commoners’ universities” (pingmin daxue) in other countries. But why now? “At this moment, when news of the Allies’ de-

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feat of Germany comes to us, the people of Beijing are all very happy. But can you tell me why? I fear that many people cannot answer that question. So we are taking this opportunity to explain why there is cause to be happy.” Intoxicated with optimism, Cai explained that the allied victory proved that the forces of justice unleashed during the French Revolution of 1789 were spreading across the globe. He called the outcome of the war a victory for the ideas of progress and mutual aid, forecast the end of racism, and predicted that Woodrow Wilson’s vision of selfdetermination for all nations would soon be realized. In a thinly veiled reference to China’s domestic political situation, Cai also declared that arbitrary authority had been unmasked and defeated by the power of the people. On the following day, November 16, the chancellor elaborated on the theme of populism and offered more commentary on Chinese politics in a talk entitled “The Dignity of Labor.” His main point was that ordinary laborers needed to become conscious of their great strength and dignity, and that they should not envy wealthy and powerful people who gained their riches by selling their souls and destroying the institutions upon which the country’s health relied.38 Li Dazhao also spoke at the teach-in; he too called the war a victory for the common people (shumin), for the spirit of mutual aid, and for democracy. Influenced by Lenin’s writings and by the Bolshevik victory in Russia, Li declared in no uncertain terms that the common people’s victory was capitalism’s defeat, and that the future belonged to workers. Li’s speech obviously implied disapproval of the political status quo in China, but he was less direct in that regard than Tao Menghe. Tao declared that the world war had entirely discredited four pernicious political practices—making secret diplomatic treaties, disrespecting the rule of law, interference in politics by military figures, and the pursuit of dictatorial power—and said that any country that failed to realize this risked serious domestic turmoil.39 Three weeks after the teach-in, a group of Beida faculty members began publishing Weekly Review (Meizhou pinglun), an avowedly political newspaper designed to keep abreast of political developments in China and abroad, and to apply constant pressure on the Beiyang government to comply with the principles of democracy. Under Chen Duxiu’s leadership, Weekly Review rapidly developed into a force to be reckoned with. The journal pioneered the suiganlu, a satirical style of essay that became popular in the May Fourth era and the precursor to the zawen essay style popularized in the 1930s. It also pioneered a biting style of journalism which was far harder hitting than that practiced


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by any other periodical of the day and which was soon imitated by other prominent May Fourth periodicals, such as the Research Clique’s Morning Post (Chen bao) and the Guomindang’s Weekly Review (Xinggi pinglun).40

journalism and the campaign to shape public opinion New Culture leaders clearly felt that recent events in Europe demonstrated the correctness of the views they had been espousing for the past five years. With the “superiority” of democracy, the rule of law, and mutual aid, as well as the horrific results of autocracy, on display for the entire world to see, the Beida activists grew more confident and more assertive. No one was more outspoken than Chen Duxiu. Writing in New Youth in January 1919, he stated: The views [New Youth] has expressed have been very mild, yet society has reacted with shock and outrage. . . . Not only older people, but youthful students, too, have regarded New Youth as a strange and heretical creature that has departed from the Classics and revolted against orthodoxy. . . . It is simply because [New Youth] supports Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science that it has been accused of committing all these crimes. If one advocates Mr. Democracy they cannot but oppose Confucianism, ceremonial rites, chastity, traditional ethics, or traditional politics. If one advocates Mr. Science they cannot but oppose old arts and old religion. . . . Will everyone please think calmly and carefully [and tell me] what crime other than advocating Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science this journal has committed? If [you can think of] none, please stop scolding the journal, and instead attack Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science head on, like true heroes.41

The majority of Beida’s students no doubt held the negative view of New Youth that Chen Duxiu ascribed to them, but a small minority of students began to play an integral role in the dissemination of the journal’s ideas at this time. Indeed, the months leading up to the May Fourth Movement witnessed a notable acceleration and expansion of the New Culture group’s campaign to shape public opinion. This was especially clear in the explosion of journalistic writing centered at Beida. The journalistic explosion revealed the extent to which New Culture leaders had persuaded an influential group of students of the need for new literature, a radical assault on “traditional” culture, and nationalist resolve in the face of foreign threats and a weak and corrupt government in Beijing. By January 1919 Beida had spawned a quar-

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tet of new publications—New Tide, Citizen, Weekly Review, and Evolution (Jinhua)—each of which, in its own way, expanded upon some aspect of the larger New Youth agenda. These publications identified the university as the most dynamic center of cultural iconoclasm and nationalistic activism in the country, thereby positioning Beida to exert influence on the nation’s political and cultural debates. The manifesto for New Tide reveals the extent to which the spirit of reform espoused by Cai Yuanpei and the faculty he hired had finally hit home with some students. Like so much of the writing of this era, the manifesto is striking for its combination of idealism and self-importance. Formerly, although this school trained students . . . it made no contribution to the creation of knowledge. It is fortunate that it can today fulfill that objective, and therefore conform to the real purpose of a university. In the past the atmosphere was no different from that of the rest of society and the people it trained here easily fit into society. . . . [Beida] can now gradually begin to enter the stream of world progress and serve as a guide for the Chinese society of the future. If this spirit takes hold here, then in ten years today’s university will be the wellspring of China’s new academic knowledge and there will be no reason why the university’s thought tide will not be able to spread across China with great force.42

As Vera Schwarcz has discussed, the couple of dozen students who wrote for New Tide believed that intellectuals could save the country by fostering an “enlightenment” ethos—Western-style scholarly knowledge and the widespread embrace of critical, scientific thinking and literary reform.43 Saving the country, a political goal, necessitated education, a cultural practice. On the other hand, the close to one hundred students who wrote for Citizen were more narrowly focused on nationalistic issues. Insofar as they believed that national strength was impossible without an educated populace and that it was their duty as intellectuals to educate and lead the people, the producers of Citizen had much in common with their classmates involved with the New Tide Society. They were less interested in formal academic discussion, however, and were not as concerned about personal liberation as they were interested in the individual as a building block of the nation. The students who published Evolution were anarchists committed to an even more radical agenda. Evolution printed articles on topics such as mutual aid, free love, and Esperanto, but only three issues were published and it never developed a large following.44 New Tide and Citizen were successful because, unlike drier publications such as Beijing University Daily, Beijing University Monthly, or, as


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of April 1919, the Mathematics and Science Journal (Shuli zazhi), they were written by and for students and were palpably full of youthful emotion and ambition. Fu Sinian spoke proudly of the fact that New Tide’s writers had the “spirit of children” (haizi qi): “Our way of speaking is not always disciplined but it is the most true and interesting; our ideas are not always polished but they are the most pure and trustworthy.”45 New Tide and Citizen addressed political and cultural issues that were of direct concern to young people (men especially), such as the evils of the patriarchal Chinese family, the condition of women, relations between the sexes, and the plight of the nation. The emphasis on topics that went beyond what could be broached in official university publications owed much to the example of New Youth, of course, but the students were getting encouragement to express themselves in public from a variety of sources. In late 1918 Beida’s support for public writing was particularly evident in the activities of the Journalism Society (Xinwenxue yanjiuhui), which offered the first formal training in the subject of journalism in Chinese history. The Journalism Society was set up under the leadership of Xu Baohuang, editor of the Beijing University Daily and recent graduate of the University of Michigan (with degrees in economics and journalism), and was enthusiastically supported by Cai Yuanpei.46 The Journalism Society marked a significant shift in the conception of the proper role of the intellectual, for although intellectuals had been writing for newspapers and magazines for over a decade by this time, there was nevertheless a residual feeling among many men of letters in the 1910s that journalistic writing was beneath the dignity of a true scholar. The notion that men of learning should be concerned first and foremost with the Classics and scholarly endeavors, understanding and appreciation of which distinguished them from others in society, continued to influence thinking on these matters. For example, many professors opposed Cai Yuanpei’s appointment of Chen Duxiu to serve as dean of humanities in 1917 because they believed that a journalist who wrote in the vernacular style assuredly lacked credentials for academic work.47 At the opening meeting of the Journalism Society in October 1918, Xu Baohuang asserted that newspapers had a responsibility not just to cover the news but also to represent and nurture public opinion, develop knowledge, promote morality, and advance industry. Xu left no doubt that he viewed journalism as a powerful force for moral and political change, and said that when they joined together newspapers could influence even governments that had no respect for public opinion. He reminded his audience of Liang Qichao’s claim that newspapers had

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played a critical role in bringing about the 1911 Revolution—in Liang’s words, a “revolution of ink, not a revolution of blood.”48 In later weeks, Xu Baohuang delivered a series of lectures on the art of being a reporter. These covered topics such as how to identify news, how to conduct interviews, the role of news agencies, and the importance of editorials. The lectures appeared in the University Daily, and the following year, when they were republished in book form by the Commercial Press, they constituted the first ever Chinese-authored full-length study of journalism.49 After the Journalism Society was founded, Shao Piaoping, a Zhejiang native and well-known Beijing reporter, was hired to share teaching duties with Xu Baohuang. Thereafter, in addition to Xu’s thrice-weekly evening lectures, students also attended a Sunday afternoon session led by Shao. Shao was a man of passionate convictions who believed deeply in the need for social justice and political renewal. In October 1918 he had established Peking Press (Jing bao) to combat the influence of newspapers that were controlled by and represented the interests of particular political parties. In the first issue of that newspaper, he had written that the country was in disarray and that the citizenry was powerless. To help overcome that powerlessness, he declared it his intention to teach people about politics so that they would join together to demand moral leadership and an end to imperialist and warlord domination. A talented and tenacious reporter, Shao instructed his students that in gathering the news they had to be as “cautious as virgins, as quick as fleeing rabbits, and to have the unfathomable anticipatory powers of spirits.” As did other New Culture leaders, he dwelled on the importance of character and morality, telling the students that reporters had to resist the temptation to accept bribes or cave in to powerful interests, and that they had always to report the news as objectively as possible.50 Shao’s energy and heroic personality made him the soul of the Journalism Society, which in late 1918 and early 1919 attracted a considerable number of idealistic students, many of whom—including Mao Zedong—were among the earliest members of the Communist Party. As the publishing frenzy sped up in early 1919, the Journalism Society began publishing Journalism Weekly (Xinwen zhoukan). In his manifesto, Xu Baohuang wrote that newspapers were as indispensable to daily life as vegetables, water, and fire and that they had far more impact on society than did university professors or clergymen.51 Interest in the subject of journalism was widespread at Beida at this time. Citizen published an article by Xu Baohuang in which he stressed the importance of newspaper editorial pages, and in the first issue of New Tide Luo Jialun


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criticized newspapers for their shallowness and for contributing to the erosion of morality by publishing stories about lascivious subjects and advertisements for dubious medical products.52 Ever more Beida students were writing for newspapers at this time. Chen Gongbo, who was elected to serve on the executive committee of the Journalism Society in February 1919, served as a correspondent for newspapers in his native province of Guangdong, for example, and Cheng Shewo, a Hunanese native who entered Beida in 1918, worked as an editor for Tianjin’s American-owned Social Welfare Daily (Yishi bao).53 Shao Piaoping also published many student articles in Peking Press, which soon gained a reputation for its ties to the progressive forces at the university. Moreover, with the reorganization of the Progressive Party’s Morning Post (Chen bao) in December 1918, and its addition of a vernacular literary supplement the following February, students and professors also began to publish articles in that newspaper with great frequency.54 In March and April 1919 a group of Beida students, many of whom were involved with the Journalism Society, formed the Commoners’ Education Lecture Society (Pingmin jiaoyu jiangyantuan), which was dedicated to the education of the “common people” by means of lectures on streetcorners and in temples around the capital.55 The Lecture Society’s founding statement indicates that a growing number of students had come to view access to education as an important social and political issue. “School-based education is only available to the sons of the wealthy, whereas the sons of the poor have to give up their schooling half way through to make a living. . . . If [we] want education to be widespread and equally available to all, the only means is to offer lectures.”56 Nevertheless, the idealism that propelled the Lecture Society’s members into the streets was suffused with the same unselfconscious elitism that characterized the New Culture Movement as a whole. Here, for example, is an excerpt from Xu Deheng’s address to a crowd of petty merchants, rickshaw men, and store clerks in April 1919: Brothers . . . the topic of today’s talk is “Diligent Toil and Knowledge.” . . . “Diligent” means “with effort”—the opposite of laziness. “Toil” means to do something. Think about it. People need to wear clothing, eat food, to live in a home, and various other things. If everybody did things lazily, wouldn’t we all freeze to death? . . . Today when I came from [Beida] I had the feeling that people along the road weren’t making an effort. . . . Shortly after I walked out the door, a group of eight or nine year-old boys, ten yearold girls, and middle-aged women came after me to beg for money. “Sir,” “Master,” “You’re a good man,” “The more you spend the more you’ll have”—such pitiful talk. [I’d] turn them down [but] ten steps later [they

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would] kneel down, and five steps after that they would bow. If those children weren’t your brothers and sisters, I imagine they were your sons and daughters; and if those women weren’t your wives I imagine they were your older sisters. . . . If everyone in a family works the family prospers. A country is the same way. . . . All of you came here today to listen to us speak, but why did you want to hear our nonsense? Isn’t it because we’re university students, and have a little knowledge . . . ? But that knowledge was not heaven sent, it was acquired through study. We very much admire your spirit of hard work. What we hope is that you can gain a little knowledge, and build educated workers’ families, that no longer have to work like machines for rich people, like the oxen and horses of aristocrats.57

Xu Deheng’s earnest yet patronizing tone conveys a clear sense of superiority even as it reveals an uncomfortable awareness of his own privileged social position. Like other New Culture leaders, Xu clearly believed that all people could benefit from education and that intellectuals were the role models that all citizens should emulate. Xu Deheng’s speech was one among many, but the titles of others— “Everybody Needs Education,” “The Harm Caused by Gambling,” “Family Reform,” “The Benefits of Reading Books,” “Superstition,” “Are You Here to See the Temple or to Listen to a Speech?” and “Citizens Need to Take as Much Responsibility as Possible”—suggest a similar tone, thus leading one to doubt, especially because many of the students dressed in long gowns and spoke with heavy southern accents, whether the Lecture Society was successful in its attempt to, in its own words, “Beida-ify” (Beida hua) China’s “common people.” An observer of the Lecture Society on the eve of the May Fourth Movement would probably have come to the same conclusion as those who, on May 1, 1919, said of the Night School for University Workers that “after being in operation for a year we have not achieved any measurable results.”58

the politics of culture: beida as a political target Most Beida students remained opposed or indifferent to the New Culture worldview on the eve of the May Fourth Movement. Instead of being wholly dominated by “new” ideas, the university was a place where “old” and “new” modes of behavior and styles of thought coexisted, as Yang Zhensheng of the New Tide Society recalled: Not only did professors disagree with one another, students fought amongst themselves too, and students also clashed with professors. The most naive


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conflicts took place between students. Somebody would have their nose buried in the Wenxuan reading the tiny characters of Li Shan’s commentaries, while outside the window someone else would be reciting Byron’s poetry in a loud voice. In one corner of the room somebody would be nodding his head to the rich melody of a classical Tongcheng text, while in the other corner several students would be talking about what kind of life [Ibsen’s] Nora would have after departing her . . . family. Those reading the ancient texts looked upon the students who read aloud with disgust and their negative looks were returned in kind.59

Barely 10 percent of the roughly twenty-five hundred students enrolled at Beijing University in early 1919 were actively engaged in publishing or lecturing activities that advanced part or all of the New Culture agenda, but the fact that students were involved at all, and that they were addressing issues of immediate social concern, created real excitement and was highly significant. Students who advocated New Culture ideas shocked their classmates with their ideas, but they were often unsure of themselves and had to struggle to find their footing during a confusing age, a point made by several memoirists who recalled their own unsettled states of mind at that time. As Chuan Dao later wrote: At that time of excitement and dynamism it was not clear which flowers I should pick in order to enrich and complete myself. What was the best thing for the country and for me? I puzzled over these matters long and hard and could not find peace. . . . Which was paramount, “to study but not to forget the need to save the country” or “to work to save the country but not to neglect the importance of study”? Was it more important to “go to the library and the laboratory” than to “go to the people”? Was it true that to speak of “isms” was simply to be a parrot, whereas real scholars talked about “problems”?60

At the faculty level, too, many of the most outspoken proponents of the “new” were caught between worlds. Hu Shi, though he wrote about the evils of the Chinese family system, married the woman his mother picked out for him (and later frequented brothels to cope with his unhappiness in the marriage). After his mother died, Hu let his hair and beard grow long and dressed in traditional mourning garb to demonstrate filial respect.61 Other examples were Li Dazhao, who combined soft-spoken manners and a traditional and arranged marriage to an illiterate woman with radical political views; Lu Xun, who lived with his young lover Xu Guangping while he was still married to another woman, but nevertheless prevented Xu from becoming involved in public activities or establishing her own career; Qian Xuantong, who spoke in a

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highly literary manner even while being one of the strongest advocates of the vernacular language; and Chen Duxiu, who boasted about his exploits with women and visited prostitutes when he was not busy writing articles about the bankruptcy of traditional Chinese society.62 Furthermore, cultural conservatives such as Huang Kan and Liu Shipei were as well liked and respected by their students as the New Culture leaders were by theirs. As their contributions to Citizen show, such men were opposed not to political activism per se, but rather to what they considered to be the shallow learning and extremist views of those who were working to downgrade the status of the classical texts and language upon which they staked their own scholarly reputations and upon which they believed Chinese civilization rested. In this light, it is understandable why Huang Kan reserved his most hate-filled invective for Qian Xuantong and Hu Shi, especially after it became clear that his prized student, the brilliant and influential Fu Sinian, had defected to the New Culture camp. The inroads that the New Culture leaders were making in the humanities division led conservatives to fear that, as Laurence Schneider writes, “an abrupt engorgement of Western culture would destroy the integrity of Chinese culture.”63 In response, Liang Shuming wrote in the Beijing University Daily in October 1918 that “China only has one national university, if eastern thought is not studied in China at this university then who will study it?” Liang then announced that he was establishing a Confucian Study Society (Kongzi yanjiuhui) at Beida. Two months later, a group of students led by Bi Xiangsui, Luo Changpei, and the future secretary to Zhang Xueliang, Zhang Xuan, spearheaded the founding of the National Heritage Monthly Society (Guogu yuekan she), whose principal faculty advisers were Liu Shipei, Liang Shuming, Huang Kan, Chen Hanzhang, Lin Sun, Ma Xulun, and Gu Hongming. In March 1919 the society published the first issue of National Heritage, a journal written in unpunctuated, literary prose that advocated Confucianism and traditional ethics.64 Liu Shipei denied that National Heritage was founded to challenge New Tide, but most members of the society were clearly arrayed against those whom they referred to as the “Beida men” (Beida ren), a label indicating how successful the New Culture advocates were in colonizing the National University, and one they soon adopted as a badge of honor.65 While the “Beida men” championed the study of science, this in no way led them to oppose the study of the Classics. As far as they were concerned, the two could be studied at the same time, so long as those who conducted research on China’s humanistic tradition did so in a sci-


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entific spirit. What this required first and foremost was a willingness to view ancient texts from a perspective that broke fundamentally with the late-Qing National Essence movement’s chauvinistic belief that Chinese tradition was superior to all others. Though the New Culture leaders repudiated the basic assumptions that guided the National Essence movement, most of them were deeply influenced by the leader of that movement, Zhang Taiyan, whose academic career was dedicated to the study of ancient texts. The scholarly approach advocated by the New Culture leaders, Yeh writes, “neatly reconciled the philological study of the Chinese classics to the challenge of Western science on the one hand, and the spirit of cultural iconoclasm on the other.”66 In adopting this approach, the New Culture group not only drowned out the weaker and less exciting ideas being published in National Heritage—which ceased publication after only the fifth issue—it also set the stage for the “ordering the national past” (zhengli guogu) movement of the 1920s, which sought both to arrive at a more accurate picture of the Chinese past and to reveal just how different that past was from the present. The debate between radicals and conservatives at Beida was intense and vituperative, but it likely would not have caught the larger public’s attention were it not for the involvement of outside forces. That involvement began in February and March of 1919, when Lin Shu, clearly antagonized by New Culture attacks on him, published two short stories in Xin Shenbao, a Shanghai newspaper. The stories made fun of the “Beida men” as vain and petty fools who showed no respect for propriety and suggested that the forces of righteousness should crush the university. Elsewhere, in a letter to Cai Yuanpei, Lin fumed that vernacular Chinese amounted to country slang (tuyu) and that, since it was now treated with respect at the National University, common street peddlers (baifan) might as well be hired to serve as professors.67 Since Lin was in the employ of the founder of the Anfu Clique and Duan Qirui’s chief of staff, Xu Shuzheng, rumors about an impending government plot to expel the New Culture leaders from Beida soon began to circulate.68 Once more, political and cultural issues had become fused, although in this case it was conservatives who linked the two. On March 18, 1919, Gongyan bao (Public Voice)—a mouthpiece for the Duan Qirui government—published a copy of a letter from Lin Shu to Cai Yuanpei, in which Lin accused Beida of sheltering men who stood against the five Confucian virtues, failed to understand the timelessness of Confucian values, elevated vernacular literature over the Classics, and endorsed sexual licentiousness.69 Outraged, New Culture leaders tried to

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pull rank on Lin Shu by pointing out that Cai Yuanpei was a Hanlin scholar, whereas Lin had attainted only the juren degree. How could a small-time scholar dare to challenge someone of Cai’s rank and caliber? It is ironic and telling that cultural radicals such as Chen Duxiu were willing to make use of the authority conferred by old-style credentials to elbow aside their ideological rivals at the height of the New Culture Movement.70 This strategy flew in the face of the principled position that a scholar’s value was determined by his ideas and energy, not his age or formal credentials, which idea Cai Yuanpei himself returned to in making his own defense against Lin Shu’s attacks. Cai refuted Lin’s attacks one by one, pointing out that Beida still taught classical Chinese and that many professors were admirers of Confucianism. He then returned to the theme of tolerance and inclusion. Beida “follows the example of the great universities of the world, adopting the principle of the freedom of thought. All theories that are reasonable and merit retention, and have not suffered the fate of being eliminated by natural selection, even though they contradict one another, should be allowed to develop freely at the university.” Cai also explained that the university did not have a right to interfere in the private lives of its faculty so long as their behavior did not intrude into their public lives as professors. There was, he asserted, a natural boundary between public and private activity (gong si zhijian, ziyou tianran jiexian). Cai said that this principle also pertained to a person’s political convictions, pointing out that one professor (Gu Hongming) wore a queue down his back to symbolize his loyalty to the Manchus, while another (Liu Shipei) had been a supporter of Yuan Shikai’s monarchical movement. Though these were extremist positions, Cai said the university had no right to disqualify the men who held them and that this proved that his policy of inclusiveness protected all opinions, not just those that veered toward the new.71 Cai’s reply to Lin Shu became a much-celebrated symbol of the chancellor’s willingness to protect academic freedom. Even Liu Shipei repudiated Lin’s position by stating publicly that Cai Yuanpei had invited him to join the faculty despite his conservatism on cultural matters, and that Cai had provided funding both for his own National Heritage and for New Tide. But conservative scholars (such as Hu Xiansu, Wu Mi, and Mei Guangdi) based at Southeastern University in Nanjing and conservative officials in Beijing nonetheless stepped up their campaign of intimidation. As Lin Shu’s letter made clear, one of their chief tactics was to imply that New Culture calls for women’s equality and freedom of


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marriage choice had turned Beida into a breeding ground for depraved attitudes about sexual and gender relations.72 President Xu Shichang became so angry when he read an article in New Tide advocating women’s rights that he warned Cai Yuanpei to rein in Beida’s students. This pressure made things uncomfortable for the New Tide Society, but Cai once more stood up for academic freedom by defending the journal. In the end, there was not a noticeable diminution in the number of articles about love or gender equality, and a short time later two members of the New Tide Society, Kang Baiqing and Luo Jialun, even published articles in the Morning Post Literary Supplement calling on the university to admit female students.73 Champions of academic freedom in China today rightly view Cai Yuanpei as a hero. In one important case, however, the relentless campaign against the New Culture Movement forced the chancellor to back down, in the process exacerbating existing tensions within the New Culture community. On the evening of March 26, 1919, Cai attended an insiders’ strategy meeting at the home of Tang Erhe, who maintained close relations with many politicians in Beijing. Professors Shen Yinmo and Ma Xulun were likewise present that night. Together, Tang, Ma, and Shen, all of whom, like Cai, were Zhejiangese, argued that some concession had to be made to the warlord government if Beida was to be spared. Since rumors about Chen Duxiu’s relationships with prostitutes had by then spread around the capital—including one that Chen had fondled a prostitute so roughly that he had injured her—they argued that the humanities dean should be dismissed on the grounds that upright moral values needed to be maintained.74 Cai Yuanpei was unhappy with the plan but did not interfere, and within days the foremost leader of the New Culture forces was relieved of his duties at the National University. Chen Duxiu’s dismissal was never formally announced, however, and Cai in fact denied that it ever took place. This was possible because Chen’s position, dean of the humanities, was done away with altogether, enabling Cai to argue that Chen’s being out of a job had to do with organizational changes at Beida, not with politics. Indeed, in March 1919, well before Chen’s dismissal, the policy-making council had voted to replace the deans of the humanities and natural sciences divisions with a single office of educational affairs (jiaowu chu), the elected leader of which would then be responsible for helping the chancellor with academic matters. This officer was to be elected on an annual basis. Instead of dismissing Chen Duxiu, Cai contrived to hold the election for the head of the office of educational affairs

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earlier than originally planned. The first person elected was Ma Yinchu, a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University. Ma effectively replaced Chen Duxiu after April 8, 1919.75 Hu Shi later expressed anger to Tang Erhe about the decision to sacrifice Chen, arguing that Tang had failed to appreciate the important difference between public and private behavior. Hu accused Shen Yinmo of playing the leading role in the conspiracy to sacrifice Chen Duxiu, but also scolded Tang for going along with Shen’s plot and said that it was Tang’s support for the plan that persuaded Cai Yuanpei to accept it as well. Hu also charged that the plotting that went on at Tang’s home had fateful consequences, since from that moment Chen Duxiu had moved steadily to the left, thereby contributing greatly to the legitimacy of the Communist movement.76 Hu Shi’s unhappiness with the treatment of Chen Duxiu reflected his more pervasive sense of irritation over the inner politics of the university at this time. According to Shen Yinmo, whom Hu considered a petty, power-hungry man, when the collapsing of the dean positions into the office of educational affairs was initially being discussed, Hu hoped to be appointed head of educational affairs, but this was resisted by a number of faculty members who felt that Hu lacked seniority and that his ambitiousness blinded him to the interests of others. However, along with Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, Ding Wenjiang, Qin Fen, and Luo Jialun observed that Shen himself was a master politician and that he was always working behind the scenes to accomplish his objectives.77 In the short term, the easing out of Chen Duxiu did little to halt the torrent of invective being directed at the university. By late March the new rumor that Lin Shu had contacted a legislator from his home province about initiating a parliamentary drive to impeach Cai Yuanpei made its way around the country.78 This, in turn, led to another round of articles in defense of academic freedom. In early April 1919 the Morning Post published “A Warning to the Conservative Camp”: Recently, a professor . . . at Tokyo Imperial University . . . said: “The present world is moving steadily in a democratic direction. This is the case in Russia and in Germany, and the tide will soon flood over East Asia . . . I not only accept this, but welcome it as well.” Japan’s conservatives took these remarks as an attack on the nation, and criticism erupted from all sides. But we did not hear of anyone asking the government to use its power to interfere. Alas! In a monarchical country like Japan they do not dare to use force to threaten a professor who supports democratic politics, but in our great republic, as a result of some trivial opposition to Confucianism, [people] want to interfere with [free] thinking and repress the university.79


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Removed from office, Chen Duxiu was no longer able to lead the charge from within, but he continued to fight back by publishing sarcastic remarks in Weekly Review. He also reprinted pro-Beida and pro–New Culture articles from around the country in that newspaper, which was selling out in Shanghai at this point. Weekly Review was filled with articles that alluded to Qin Shihuang’s burning of books, condemned Beijing’s politicians for understanding nothing but despotism, and steadfastly defended freedom of thought and speech. Intellectuals across China were watching the struggle at the National University. In late April, a columnist for a newspaper in the distant city of Chengdu called Beida China’s “one and only source of morning light” (weiyi de shuguang) and declared that the campaign against the New Culture professors constituted a greater threat to the Republic than the illegal dissolution of parliament in 1917.80

may fourth and the birth of beida as a charged symbol Ironically, the attacks on Beida in spring 1919 had the unintended effect of elevating the university in the public’s consciousness and of triggering a rally of support for the New Culture leaders. Nonetheless, as Chow Tse-tsung makes clear, it was Beida’s vanguard role in the nationalist protests of May and June 1919 that finally created the conditions necessary for the explosion of a nationwide New Culture Movement. The ascendancy of New Culture ideas was not an inevitable outcome of the May Fourth protests against the Chinese government’s acquiescence in the awarding of German-controlled territory in Shandong province to Japan. Rather, it resulted from the Beiyang government’s inability to recognize that nationalist outrage about China’s diplomatic humiliation was broad and deep within Chinese society, and that Beida’s New Culture forces did not manufacture that outrage but instead led it. By focusing its wrath on Beijing University and on Cai Yuanpei in particular, the government gave cultural radicals an opportunity to defend the widely popular May Fourth demonstration and thus to position themselves in the political mainstream. Beida’s transformation into a modernday center of qingyi-style remonstrance in spring and summer 1919 helped generate a larger and more sympathetic audience for the cultural critique flowing from the university, in turn transforming the university into one of twentieth-century China’s most recognizable symbols of opposition to autocracy.

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The May Fourth Movement was both “overdetermined” and contingent. Although in substance the demonstrations shared much with the protest of May 1918, in tone they stood in stark contrast and instead seem to have been inspired by the student-led movement for independence from Japan that took place in Korea over the weeks just before the May Fourth explosion. The Korean “March First Movement,” which claimed hundreds or even thousands of Korean lives, was reported in detail in Chinese newspapers and was well known to student leaders in Beijing.81 Indeed, the Beijing students appear to have learned at least some of their protest tactics from their Korean counterparts. In excoriating government ministers whom they held responsible for selling out China’s interests to Japan, for example, the Chinese students were following the lead of the Korean students, and like the Korean protestors, they took their demonstration to the private residence of one of those ministers.82 The demonstrators of May and June 1919 probably succeeded more than they dared to hope they would, but there can be little doubt that an important segment of the Beida protestors was, as Rudolf Wagner argues, self-consciously inventing a “new form of social action,” what was to become known as “the movement” (yundong). In the weeks leading up to the demonstration—which was originally scheduled to take place on May 7, the so-called “Day of National Humiliation” that marked China’s capitulation to Japan’s “Twenty-one Demands Ultimatum” of 1915—students collected money (which they then used to fund the costs of the protest), and just before taking to the streets they prepared an English-language statement for distribution at foreign embassies. What was at stake, they obviously realized, was control over the story line, a concern to which they had become attuned by months of published debate between New Culture supporters and their opponents, and by Japanese reports on the Korean protests, which used critical words like “disturbance,” “upheaval,” and “havoc” to describe the events. In mid-May, students distributed hastily prepared gazettes to ordinary people on the street; like the open-air speeches that students delivered all over the capital, the purpose of the gazettes was to rally broad support for their cause.83 Despite ample evidence that the leaders of the protests were deliberate in many of their actions, participants generally described the events of May 4 as having emanated from spontaneous and uncontrollable fury over the news from Paris. The New Culture emphasis on rationality notwithstanding, it seems that spontaneous feelings from the heart were judged worthier of support than rational calculations from the head.


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Such feelings could be more easily construed as pure and therefore connected to the “truth”—namely, that the government’s deeds at Paris represented a crippling blow to China that all citizens naturally and immediately experienced as a painful wound to their own flesh. While the students, of course, had very good reason to be scandalized by the developments in Paris, and much of the emotion on display during the protests was undoubtedly sincere, it is also clear that the expression of raw emotions was used to manipulate the feelings of others. At Beida on the evening of May 3, for example, just after a series of stirring speeches calling for a protest the following day, eighteen-year-old Liu Renjing climbed onto the speaker’s platform with a knife and threatened to kill himself in order to demonstrate his patriotism. Another student, Xie Shaomin, tore at his clothes and then wrote “Return our Qingdao” with blood that he obtained by biting his finger. News of these exploits spread and whipped the student community into an even greater frenzy.84 The students’ concern to control the story line so that they would be viewed as patriotic heroes was also evident in the way they responded to the violence that took place on May 4. That violence, which the students initiated, included the brutal beating (with stones, wooden clubs, fists, and feet) of Zhang Zongxiang, China’s ambassador to Japan, and the burning of Minister of Communications Cao Rulin’s mansion. Unlike other aspects of the demonstration, by all accounts these events were not planned; indeed, the scene in front of Cao Rulin’s mansion was chaotic, the crowd of students surging forward and back in a terrifying crush so powerful that many protestors were stripped of their hats and shoes.85 The demonstrators may have started the violence, but there was nevertheless immediate and widespread support from students for the thirtyone of their number who were arrested because of it. Anger over the government’s betrayal of the national interest overrode all else. As Zhang Zongxiang lay near death in the hospital, student leaders not only presented their actions as entirely righteous, they went out of their way to declare a martyr of their own—Beida student Guo Qinguang, who died on May 7. The students maintained that Guo died from a beating given him by troops guarding Cao’s mansion and that he therefore had made the ultimate sacrifice for the country. On May 18 a massive funeral attended by over two thousand people was held at the largest auditorium at Beijing University. A portrait of Guo hanging above the stage was flanked by the phrases, “[He] fought hard for Qingdao, [his] death is heavier than Taishan.” Guo Qinguang’s death became a national issue, with ceremonies in his honor being staged in Tianjin and Shanghai, among other places.86

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In a moment of candor over a decade later, however, May Fourth student leader Luo Jialun owned that the assertion that Guo Qinguang was a martyr was “ridiculous” (huaji). Luo explained that it was well known that Guo suffered from tuberculosis and that the disease killed him, not a beating at the hands of government troops, though he did admit that Guo’s participation in the May 4 demonstration probably contributed to his exhaustion and thus death. Even more damning, Luo claimed that Beida students concocted the idea of claiming that Guo was beaten to death as a means of explaining why it was that they had nearly killed Zhang Zongxiang. If this is true, it appears that in their quest to protect themselves and to sway public opinion, some students were prepared to use any and all tactics, no matter how dishonest.87 Cai Yuanpei sympathized with the students’ outrage; at a meeting with their leaders on May 2 he had even called on them to rise up to save the country. But following the events on May 4 he begged the students to return to class lest Beida be irreparably tarred in the eyes of government conservatives on the lookout for excuses to crush it.88 But it was too late. Very quickly, rumors spread that the Ministry of Education was prepared to name Ma Qichang (a close friend of Lin Shu’s who taught at Beida during the Yuan Shikai era) to replace Cai as chancellor. More ominous rumors also began to circulate. One had it that a three million yuan price had been taken out on Cai Yuanpei’s head; another that soldiers loyal to Xu Shuzheng were going to rain bombs on Beida from Coal Hill; and still another that the students were going to be slaughtered en masse. Terrified, many students moved out of their dormitories, and Cai’s friends tried to persuade him to ride in a covered automobile rather than in a more exposed horse-drawn carriage, as was his custom.89 Finally persuaded that he could not ignore the threats, on May 9, after the students arrested on May 4 had been freed, Cai tendered his resignation, traveled to Tianjin, and boarded a train for Shanghai—his ultimate destination being a retreat on Hangzhou’s West Lake. The chancellor hoped that his resignation would satisfy the government’s desire for an accounting and that Beijing University could resume its academic activities behind the leadership of the policy-making council. Instead, his departure precipitated another round of demonstrations, entirely disrupting the university’s normal workings. Students set about organizing a Beijing Student Union, which orchestrated a citywide class boycott to pressure the government to bring Cai back to the capital; they also sent representatives to Tianjin, Jinan, Nanjing, and Shanghai to help organize demonstrations in those cities.90 In addition, the chancellors of


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other colleges in the capital quit their posts in solidarity with Cai, and a number of Beida professors, even conservatives such as Huang Kan and Gu Hongming—the latter of whom reasoned that the chancellor was like the university’s emperor and therefore had to be reinstated—threatened to do the same if he was not brought back to Beida. Alarmed by the spreading unrest, the Duan government made a halfhearted effort to bring the chancellor back, but Cai refused, explaining that the government had no respect for academic freedom and that he was disgusted by the political culture of the capital.91 By early June, when Xu Shuzheng publicly defended the pro-Japanese ministers whose resignations the students had been demanding, the Beijing Student Union provoked a massive confrontation that involved students marching in the streets and delivering public speeches in direct violation of the government’s orders to refrain from doing so. This “June 3 Incident” marked the second dramatic peak of the protest movement. Thousands of students were arrested and locked up in the building that housed the university’s social science and law departments, which was literally converted into a prison and surrounded by armed troops. Traffic around the campus became impassable, and tents were pitched on university grounds to house the soldiers. Chen Duxiu captured the potent symbolism of the moment: “The world has two sources of civilization: one is the scientific laboratory, the other is prison. Our youth must determine to go from the laboratory into prison, and from prison back to the laboratory.” Chen continued, “That alone is the most noble and beautiful way to live. The civilization that emanates from those two places is the only true civilization, the only living and valuable civilization.”92 Massive sympathy protests rippled across the country. Shanghai, in particular, played a hugely important role, soon becoming China’s “most important center of student activities.” Sun Yatsen compared the Beijing protestors to the heroes at the Imperial College of the Northern Song dynasty and urged Shanghai’s students to follow their lead. After this, Fudan University developed into a major center of protest, so much so that people began to refer to it as the “Beida of Shanghai.”93 Stunned by the outpouring of support for the Beijing students, and especially by strikes by Shanghai’s workers, the Duan Qirui government caved in to the students’ demands. On June 5 the Beida prison was disbanded and the pro-Japanese ministers were forced to resign. Even after the troops were withdrawn, however, the imprisoned students refused to leave. Recognizing that they had the nation’s attention and that the government was in a weak position, they declared that they would not return

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to freedom until the government met four demands: that the proJapanese ministers be dismissed; that the government respect the students’ freedom of speech; that they be allowed to conduct a victory march through the streets of the capital after their release; and that the government make a public apology to them for the arrests. On June 8, after an official government apology, the students agreed to leave the ad hoc prison. As they streamed out of the university buildings to embark on their victory march, they were greeted by cheering crowds and the sound of firecrackers mixed with celebratory band music. For their part, the freed students led the crowd in a rousing chant: “Long live the Republic of China, Long live China’s students, Long live Beijing University!”94 Over the next several weeks, desiring to do away with Beida altogether but aware that the university was the trip wire that had set off the explosions of protest across the country, the government weighed its options. Its refusal to sign the peace treaty with Germany on June 28, 1919, signaled the government’s willingness to fight with Japan over Qingdao, thus making it clear that it did not feel that it could win the public opinion battle against the university and its supporters. Until the alliance of forces at Beida and in Shanghai won the day, however, many influential intellectuals feared that Beijing University was going to be crushed. So concerned about Beida’s fate had Shanghai’s educational leaders been in summer 1919, for example, that some of them suggested that the university be moved to Shanghai or Nanjing as a way of removing it from the political cesspool in the capital.95 But this never came to pass, and for the time being, Beijing remained the center of the New Culture Movement; by this time, though, its status as such owed much to the support its intellectual leaders received from their allies in Shanghai. Owing to Cai Yuanpei’s decision to send Jiang Menglin to the capital to serve as his replacement, greater influence in higher-education circles there accrued to the American-educated Shanghai group of educators centered on Huang Yanpei, Jiang Menglin, and Tao Xisheng, all of whom also had close ties to Hu Shi at Beida. Jiang arrived in late July, was bolstered by a letter from Sun Yatsen urging him to protect Beida and the progressive forces in the North, and immediately went to work to restore the university to working order. In an August 10 letter to colleagues in Shanghai, Jiang reported that things at the university were back to normal and that it was now impossible to tell that there had even been a massive student movement. A short time later, Cai Yuanpei agreed to return to Beida for the fall semester.96 Cai’s announcement was accompanied by the following statement to Beida’s students:


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You have now completely fulfilled your duty to awaken the people, and do not need to do anymore! . . . Our country’s population is four hundred million . . . those who have access to ordinary education make up a few hundredths of a percent, and those who are in a position to receive education in pure science constitute a few ten thousandths of a percent. . . . How incalculably huge your responsibility is. Are you willing to sacrifice that to take part in a mass political movement? . . . In your cable of the 13th you said you want to “study hard to pay the country back.” Your diligence captured my heart. From this day forward I hope we all exhaust ourselves for learning, so that the university . . . can set the course for our country’s civilization for the next one hundred years.97

Cai Yuanpei had always emphasized the supreme importance of academic study, but he had also encouraged the students to show concern for the fate of the nation and to take a leadership role in society. As far as he was concerned, those goals could be balanced with one another. The May Fourth Movement demonstrated to him that they were in fact more difficult to balance than he had realized, and that he had to be clearer as to his vision for the university.

chapter 6

Tensions within the May Fourth Movement

Beijing University was never the same after 1919. The trappings of the Jingshi daxuetang that still existed in residual form at the end of the Yuan Shikai era appeared to have evaporated overnight: the Imperial University was gone and “Beida” had arrived—a new force on the national landscape destined to play a central role in Chinese political and cultural life into the foreseeable future. The students at the nation’s highest school had “awakened” the Chinese people with their courageous display of nationalism, thereby etching a sharp dividing line beyond which a new period of “modern” consciousness was at hand. Or so the story has been told ever since. The purpose of this chapter is not so much to overthrow this May Fourth–centered rendition of history as it is to take a detailed look at Beida during the May Fourth Movement so as to explore the multiple tensions within the culture of the radicalized university in the years immediately after 1919. Though students had developed a dramatic “repertoire” of protest, the culture of the university was not as far removed from its own past as is often explicitly claimed or implicitly assumed.1 In accord with David Strand’s depiction in Rickshaw Beijing of a city in transition, I argue that Beijing University was characterized by an uneasy, halting embrace of “the new,” as well as uncertainty as to what, exactly, the consequences were for intellectuals who claimed to be committed to New Culture values. I explore these issues by looking at debates over the proper mission for Beida and how the institution itself should be run; the 182


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process by which the university was opened to female students; and the way its intellectuals viewed themselves in relation both to society and to popular cultural tastes. Whereas on the one hand I am seeking to illuminate post–May Fourth Beida’s rootedness in the past, I am on the other hand emphasizing the extent to which the May Fourth Movement did in fact forever change the institution. By emphasizing these points together, I wish to draw attention to the dialectical relationship between the old culture and the new.

attempts to define beida’s mission after the may fourth movement In July 1919 Cai Yuanpei consented to return to Beida for the fall term on the condition that there be no further disturbances. Cai insisted that learning was the students’ greatest “responsibility” (zeren) and that they could best demonstrate love of country by devoting themselves untiringly to their studies. These themes were reiterated at Beida’s openingday ceremony in late September, at which, on behalf of his schoolmates, student leader Fang Hao spoke in glowing terms about the new consciousness students had acquired as a result of their struggles with the government and proclaimed himself certain that Beida would continue to be a center of scholarship and new thinking. Today’s ceremony not only welcomes Chancellor Cai back, but also celebrates “a new culture for the country, a new era for the university, and a new life for the students,” Fang said. “Long live the university! Long live the Republic of China!”2 Cai thanked the students for their loving support, but then stated pointedly that in recent months Beida had acquired a dubious reputation for being a bastion of unceasing political agitation. The chancellor had a delicate balancing act to perform, for he could not express too many reservations about the prospect of further student activism without risking his legitimacy as a leader in their eyes. Instead of protest movements in the streets, however, he supported education as a form of activism, one that worked for gradual as opposed to immediate results. Cai received support for this message from Hu Shi, Jiang Menglin, and others who were influenced by American educational ideas, especially those of the distinguished American philosopher and educator, John Dewey. In summer 1919 Hu Shi made an articulate case in support of gradualism in an exchange with Li Dazhao over the relative advantages of seeking to resolve problems one at a time rather than all at once, based on a single,

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grand theory. In this debate on “problems versus isms,” which unfolded in installments in the pages of Weekly Review, Hu affirmed the critical importance of intellectual experts, whereas Li argued that experts could not solve society’s impacted problems on their own and thus needed to embrace an “ism” that would enable them to rally the people behind their cause. Li had just published “My Views on Marxism” in New Youth, and he openly supported revolution, a “fundamental solution,” and therefore the direct involvement of intellectuals in politics, whereas Hu stood for reform and against the idea that intellectuals should involve themselves directly in politics, publicly taking sides.3 More closely aligned with Hu Shi than with Li Dazhao, and in any event determined to steer Beida out of the political storm, at the fall 1919 opening ceremony Cai Yuanpei did not dwell on the months of excitement and agitation just past. Instead, he sought to concentrate the students’ minds on the themes he had been pressing for the last two years, reminding his adoring audience that universities are devoted to the open-ended search for knowledge through research, not peddlers of diplomas or purveyors of absolute truth. Cai also talked about the need for a stable work atmosphere, explaining the necessity of further developing the university’s leadership structure so that, in the event of inevitable short-term absences on the part of the chancellor in the future, the faculty’s self-governing bodies could keep the institution running. Rather than fan the flames of the student movement, the chancellor was intent on returning stability to the university and on harnessing the students’ passion toward an expression of patriotism through academic achievement. The chancellor’s message was reinforced in the last address of the day, which was delivered by John Dewey, who had arrived in China shortly after the May Fourth protests. With Hu Shi translating, Dewey sought to clarify the larger purpose of universities as an institutional type, as well as Beijing University’s unique historical mission. He proclaimed that universities were pivotal in meeting two of humanity’s greatest needs— the collecting and spreading of academic knowledge and the assimilation of fresh knowledge under changed social and historical circumstances. He also argued that no university in the world had a greater responsibility than Beijing University, since China was at this very moment passing through social and historical circumstances that made the absorption of new knowledge and fresh intellectual paradigms an absolute necessity (Dewey later followed up on this idea when he called Cai Yuanpei the most influential university chancellor the world had ever seen). China


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was seeking to marry an old culture to a new one, Dewey stated, and Beijing University needed to serve as matchmaker. If the matchmaker does its job well, Dewey continued, then it will be possible for the married couple to give birth to a son who is free, progressive, and prosperous.4 The heightened public stature that Beida gained as a result of the May Fourth Movement led to a dramatic upsurge in the number of applicants to the university. Many more students desired to attend Beida at this time than there were places at the university, and it was not uncommon for the most determined among them to seek entrance for years on end, much as candidates for the imperial examinations had done in centuries past. Luo Dunwei, a Hunan native who managed to test into the university, recalled that of the nearly 3,000 candidates who sat for the entrance examination with him in 1919, only 180 passed. Students who failed to gain admittance during the first round of examinations were not allowed to take the test again that year, but many falsified their identities in order to do just that. Students who failed a second time also adopted the strategy of first enrolling at another school, then seeking the following year to transfer into the Jingshi daxue (at this time, many students still referred to Beida as the Imperial University).5 The tremendous demand for a place at Beida had to do with the status attraction of the National University and the career prospects that this promised. Graduates who returned to their native places (many did not wish to leave the capital) had no difficulty finding employment and often became important personages. According to Zhang Guruo, a Shandong native who attended Beida in the 1920s, the head of the Shandong Provincial Educational Bureau was a Beida graduate, as were the principals of at least four of the eight higher-middle schools in the province. Here is an example of co-provincial network formation at work: it was the head of the Provincial Education Bureau who appointed the four principals, all of whom were his former classmates at Beijing University.6 Because attendance at the National University enabled students to establish valuable personal connections, and because a diploma from the school conferred prestige, young men from all over China sought to enroll there. In addition, however, students’ memoirs indicate that young men were drawn to May Fourth Beida by its cultural and political dynamism. For instance, Chuan Dao, who transferred from Shanxi University in fall 1919, wrote that upon arriving at the National University he felt like a man who had escaped from a suffocating chamber into the fresh air of a brightly lit garden. Beida’s May Fourth and New Culture leaders had be-

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come celebrities, recognizable names for a younger generation searching for role models. Across China students were familiar with New Youth, and the prospect of studying with the professors who wrote for that journal was highly exciting. Moreover, along with faculty members like Hu Shi and Qian Xuantong, Beida’s student leaders had also become celebrities—which led some of them to become quite conceited. Chuan Dao wrote about the great thrill he felt when, after he transferred to Beida, Luo Jialun, Kang Baiqing, Duan Xipeng, and other well-known student leaders were pointed out to him. Similarly, Luo Dunwei talks about how May Fourth and New Culture activism transformed some of his classmates into nationally known “personalities” (renwu.)7 The reforms at Beida after 1917 created the conditions that gave rise to this new breed of intellectual celebrity, but May Fourth and the publicity it brought to the university tipped the balance. That movement enabled Beida’s students—as well as those elsewhere in China—to demonstrate their ability to organize themselves and to catalyze political activism within other sectors of society. But even in the aftermath of the May Fourth Movement the majority of Beida’s students remained disengaged from the heady spirit of the times. To be sure, after 1919 there was a new consciousness, but this was primarily within small circles of students, many of which did not overlap. Tian Jiongjin, a philosophy major, addressed the dispersed nature of the student body: “It was . . . common for students who lived in the same dormitory to go an entire year without any substantial contact, even neglecting to exchange greetings when they encountered one another.” For this reason, Tian explained, it was wrong to speak of a “Beida school” (Beida pai). “Before and after the May Fourth Movement there were numerous academic and political student organizations at Beida . . . but the biggest of these could claim roughly one hundred members and the smallest only several dozen. There was absolutely no organization that could represent all of Beida’s students or a Beida School.”8 Ambitious activists who desired to make the most of their position at the “highest school” were challenged to overcome the scattered and still disunited condition of the university’s students. One student who took on the challenge was Kang Baiqing, a founding member of the New Tide Society, one of the foremost new-style poets of the day and, according to classmate Chen Gongbo, so insufferably arrogant that Chen could not bear to be around him.9 In a nationally circulated article in which he profiled Beida’s students, Kang criticized those who associated with one another exclusively on the basis of shared native place origins, or because


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they were graduates of the same secondary schools, calling these latter organizations, in particular, “obstacles to social progress.” He maintained that the students naturally shared, or should share, what he referred to as an “instinctual” Beida “style.” This involved a fundamental commitment to freedom, social activism, and cooperation. Kang wrote that Beida should not be dominated by any single school of thought, but he nevertheless celebrated efforts to foster commitment to the New Culture values for which he was a spokesman.10 Along these lines, Kang Baiqing had highly complimentary things to say about the newly formed Beijing University Students’ Association (Beijing daxue xueshenghui), which evolved from the organizing efforts undertaken during the high tide of the May Fourth Movement.11 Kang himself was active in the association—in fall 1919 he was elected as one of its officers along with Fang Hao (the chair), Yi Keyi, and Zhang Guotao—and praised the organization for representing the entire student body. All students were eligible to serve in this umbrella association, which was dedicated to the promotion of a spirit of mutual aid and to working on behalf of academic progress and social reform. It was designed to serve as a student government, and like the faculty government, it had an annually elected policy-making council as well as an action committee whose duties included, among other things, organizing activities, drafting letters and cables, looking after the budget, and managing relations with outside parties. Kang Baiqing had great expectations for this new organization, promising that it would help eradicate student passivity and thus obviate the need for strict supervision of the students on the part of administrators. Kang had no doubt that the Students’ Association enjoyed widespread support from Beida’s students and that it would help knit together the campus community. He pointed out that after the May Fourth Movement it had produced a school flag (with the Beida insignia designed by Lu Xun in the center) whose red, yellow, and blue horizontal bands of color stood for freedom, equality, and fraternity. In October 1920, the flag was formally adopted for use by the university.12 Kang compared the Student Association’s policy-making council to a national legislature and noted that the school flag was similar to a national flag. In so doing, he compared Beida to a sovereign democratic state and implied that its students deserved to be recognized as serious men of purpose.13 This point was reinforced by the Students’ Association’s launching of a nationally circulated journal, the Beijing University Students’ Weekly (Beijing daxue xuesheng zhoukan). The editors of the new publication proudly

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declared that it was of and for the students, as opposed to the Beijing University Daily, which was published by the school’s administrators, and that the Weekly would advance scientific thinking without subscribing narrowly to any single school of thought. These efforts to foster unity and cooperation within the student body, supported and encouraged though they were by New Culture backers on the faculty, placed Beida’s administration in a difficult position vis-à-vis the Beijing government. On several occasions in late 1919 and early 1920 the Ministry of Education notified Beida’s leaders that it expected them to keep a closer eye on students who were likely to become involved in political activities, whether this involved handing out leaflets (not permitted unless preregistered with the police) or congregating to take part in political rallies (forbidden).14 But such warnings scarcely prevented further political activism on the part of a now battle-tested student body, infused by a large number of new classmates from the provinces eager for their own confrontations with authority.

confrontation and experimentation The frequency of student political actions, combined with the steady degradation of Chinese politics, created a situation of more or less continual standoff between Beida and the various governments that cycled through the capital in the 1920s. As this process unfolded, activist students, as opposed to their professors, increasingly dominated the public face that the university projected to the nation. One of the most dramatic instances of student activism in defiance of police warnings was the socalled “bread movement” (mianbao yundong), held on October 10, 1919, to commemorate the eighth anniversary of the 1911 Revolution. Led by students from Beida, college and secondary school students in the capital contributed money to purchase tens of thousands of loaves of bread for distribution among the city’s poorest workers. Students painted slogans in bright red characters on the loaves of bread: “work is sacred” (laogong shensheng), “down with autocracy” (tuifan zhuanzhi), “overthrow the warlords” (dadao junfa), “long live democracy” (demokelaxi wansui), “mutual aid” (huzhu), and “shun enemy goods” (buyong chouhuo). This publicity-grabbing activity demonstrated the students’ social awareness as well as their determination to reach out across class lines. The “bread movement” passed peaceably, but six weeks later students erupted onto the streets again, this time to express solidarity with students in Fuzhou who had been beaten—one of them


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to death—by Japanese troops. Beida’s students once more played a leading role in the protests, which attracted tens of thousands of participants and helped rejuvenate the movement to boycott Japanese goods. In fact, the protests at Beida became so heated that the government once more sent troops to surround the university.15 Clearly, efforts to focus the students on their studies and to prevent further clashes between the university and the Beijing government proved partially successful at best. In January 1920 Cai Yuanpei published a commentary in the journal New Education (Xin jiaoyu) telling students that in his view it would be a tragedy if they spent time on political movements to the detriment of their schoolwork. Labor strikes and shopkeepers’ strikes both involved sacrifices, Cai stated, but the loss incurred by students who boycott their classes is incalculably greater. He told students that they had already succeeded in awakening the Chinese people and, employing the same expression that Hu Shi used in May 1919, that boycotting their classes was a “suicidal political tactic” (zisha zhengce).16 Cai also continued to preach the importance of achieving an aesthetic worldview as a way of developing greater psychological stability, declaring that the New Culture Movement would fail if its leaders did not adopt an aesthetic worldview: “Today the culture movement has already moved from Europe and the United States to China. Liberation! Creation! New thought tide! New life! These [ideas] appear in every type of magazine and newspaper, and no longer seem strange. But culture is not simple. It is confusing. A movement should not be empty talk, it should be action-oriented. To penetrate the confusion, it is necessary to study science. To encourage implementation, it is necessary to embrace aesthetics.”17 The ever-growing number of students involved in the arts testifies to the success of Cai’s effort to instill appreciation for aesthetics, just as the proliferation of scholarly articles in student journals such as New Tide and the increase in academically oriented extracurricular societies reveal that a significant minority within the student body had committed to rigorous academic work. However, these developments took place concurrently with increased radicalism at Beida, evidence of which can be seen in a series of essays that openly rejected Zhang Shizhao’s renewed plea for compromise between new and old cultural values. The most visible criticism of Zhang’s position was by Chen Duxiu and appeared in the December 1, 1919, issue of New Youth. Chen ridiculed Zhang for failing to evaluate the content of so-called “old” and “new” values and for simply repeating that neither overly new nor overly old values were a

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good thing, thereby eliminating the need to face up to difficult choices. Chen showed little patience for those who warmly welcomed the “new” in the material realm, much of which originated in the West, but rejected new social values out of hand because they were not Chinese.18 The message was clear: instead of letting up, the new culture forces had to push even harder against those who upheld the old morality. In effect, Chen Duxiu was fanning the flames of a fire that was already burning. In early February 1920, students from Beida joined with other students in the capital to protest the government’s handling of its negotiations with Japan over the Shandong matter. Cai Yuanpei pleaded with government authorities to leave the maintenance of order and stability in the hands of Beida’s administrators rather than once more intervening with troops, but his request fell on deaf ears. Troops were stationed close to the university and Duan Zhigui, commander of the Beijing garrison, demanded that the chairman of the Beida Students’ Association, Fang Hao, be expelled from school and turned over to government authorities for punishment. Several other Beida students were also imprisoned for their protest activities. Once more, Cai Yuanpei was forced to spend energy and political capital to defuse the situation.19 The tendency toward continued confrontation took place in the cultural sphere as well. Following the May Fourth Movement it became de rigueur for students attracted by the promise of a “new life” (xin shenghuo) to publish in vernacular-language magazines and newspapers. Hu Shi asserted that some four hundred journals came into being in 1919 alone, and Chow Tse-tsung later compiled an annotated list of periodicals from the May Fourth era with over six hundred titles.20 The journalistic publishing craze attracted the attention of political parties as well. Convinced that the post–May Fourth awakening presented them with a political opening, Sun Yatsen and other Guomindang leaders began publishing Weekly Review (Xingqi pinglun) and Construction (Jianshe), as well as Consciousness (Juewu), a literary supplement to the party’s Shanghai-based Republican Times (Minguo ribao). Ironically, while the explosion of new culture journals attested to the widespread influence that the National University had had on the nation, it also robbed Beida of its singularity by creating a host of rival centers with competitor periodicals. Newer journals such as Beijing University Students’ Weekly and New Life (Xin shenghuo), a weekly aimed at commoners, had sizable followings; together with older publications such as Citizen and New Tide, they kept the university in the middle of things for the time being.


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Another short-lived journal that helped keep Beida in the middle of things was Struggle (Fendou), an avowedly anarchist publication whose founders and editors, Yi Junzuo, Zhu Qianzhi, and Guo Chuliang, were students in the law division. Of all the Beida journals at this juncture, Struggle was the most open in its call for radical social change. Here it is useful to remember Dirlik’s argument that while anarchism became central to the revolutionary discourse, the New Culture Movement was a “movement of ideas, a consciousness in the making with a history of its own,” and cannot be identified “with any one ideology.”21 Anarchism’s increasingly prominent role in this dialectical movement of ideas was especially visible at Beijing University immediately following the May Fourth Movement. In addition to Struggle, the journals New Life and New Tide also included discussions of anarchist ideas. Moreover, the official organ of the Beida Students’ Association, Beijing University Students’ Weekly, was edited by Huang Lingshuang, a disciple of Shifu, “the founding father of Guangzhou anarchism.”22 Indeed, writings with explicitly anarchist themes were heavily represented in the Beijing University Students’ Weekly—whose cover page included the journal’s Esperanto name: la studentaro de la s’tata pekin-universitato. Virtually every issue of the Beijing University Students’ Daily included at least one lengthy article focused on anarchist theory or on a particular anarchist thinker, though there was disagreement among the magazine’s writers as to which school of anarchism was superior. More telling with regard to the political culture at Beida, however, are the numerous references to the need to bring the spirit of “struggle” (fendou) into daily life. Students were anxious for action in their own lives and began to scrutinize China’s schools in their effort to liberate society and root out injustice and authority in all its manifestations. One of them invoked the Ming dynasty philosopher Wang Yangming’s call for unity between thought and action (zhixing heyi), revealing that those who embraced anarchist ideas were in no way turning their backs on the Chinese past as a possible source of inspiration.23 The commitment to praxis led to calls for the abolition of the system of school chancellors, the institution of graduation, examinations, and the system of academic degrees. These writings were often strident. For example, a student named Liubing (to protest the family system, authors for the Weekly and for other anarchist journals commonly omitted their surnames) urged an end to all school rules and regulations, including roll taking in class. “At present the cry to abolish examinations and meritbased rewards is loud, everyone welcomes the idea of revealing the

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whole truth about these corrupt practices. But there are many more terrible things about the way schools are organized,” wrote Liubing. “Will it really constitute a thoroughgoing reform if [we] merely abolish examinations and merit-based rewards? Every repressive, swindling, authoritarian, mechanical . . . evil aspect of the system must be dispensed with; there is no room for any of them.”24 One article compared China’s schools to prisons, complaining that once students enrolled they were cut off from society as though serving a sentence, while another asserted that examinations created a competitive mentality and a concern with one’s own welfare to the exclusion of society as a whole.25 Zhu Qianzhi, who subscribed to Max Stirner’s brand of extreme individualism, caused a minor sensation in spring 1920 by declaring the university’s system of examinations corrupt. In answer, Jiang Menglin stated that Zhu and those who agreed with him were free not to take examinations, so long as they did not want diplomas. Zhu responded testily by saying that he had enrolled at Beida not to receive a diploma but because he wanted knowledge.26 An advertisement for the Beijing University Students’ Weekly in the April 1920 issue of New Tide informs prospective readers that they can get to the heart of the New Culture Movement by reading the Weekly.27 In addition to once more raising the issue of competition for “market share” on the part of the multitude of New Culture publications, the advertisement begs the question of just how well the views expressed in the Weekly represented those of the Beida student body as a whole. Chow Tse-tsung estimated that no more than 20 percent of the Beijing student body was actively involved in the New Culture Movement, the remaining 80 percent being either “the remnant of the prodigals who still lived more or less luxurious and corrupt lives” or “diligent students who devoted their attention more to study than to current affairs.”28 Luo Dunwei, who enrolled at Beida after the May Fourth Movement, made a similar observation about the different types of students at the university: “Those who participated in the New Culture Movement were called the New Culture camp; within that group were progressive types who organized political movements—they comprised the politicians camp. There was also the playboy camp, whose members spent their time attending operas and visiting brothels. Finally, there was the studious camp, whose members spent all their time reading books and did not get involved in other matters.”29 No doubt, the lines between these groups were blurrier than such classification schemes indicate. Many students who pursued the indo-


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lent, playboy lifestyle probably lacked interest in the questioning that came with the New Culture Movement, but others may well have felt confused and depressed by all the questioning and therefore more comfortable in retreat. It was one thing to take part in the excitement of the May Fourth protests and another thing altogether to commit oneself to the difficult work of enlightenment, with all the soul-searching that it required. Even if the assertive, anarchist-colored views expressed in the Beijing University Students’ Weekly accurately reflected the opinion of Beida’s New Culture camp, in other words, it is likely that many students did not even read the journal, much less have developed opinions with regard to the issues it addressed and the positions it stood for. Students involved in the New Culture Movement seem to have been propelled toward activism not merely by their idealism but also by what they took to be the negative example of the majority of their classmates. They could both dream and, self-righteously, go on the attack. For example, Miu Jinyuan published an article in a nationally circulated magazine scolding his Beida classmates for living “lives without meaning” (wuyisi de shenghuo). In particular, Miu took them to task for turning their apartments into gambling dens, being addicted to opera, and spending time and money on prostitutes. To hear Miu tell it, outside his circle of friends, little had changed at Beida since the Yuan Shikai era.30 In response, some activists separated themselves from their peers for the purpose of creating a “new life” (xin shenghuo). In 1919 and 1920, especially, idealistic students experimented with new living arrangements that they conceived as a form of political and social engagement. One of them, Ma Yuancai, explained his decision to join the so-called New Life Movement (Xin shenghuo yundong). In fall 1919 I was living in Beijing University’s dormitories. One day I received a mimeographed flier entitled “practice a new life” signed by an upper division student named Deng [Zhongxia] from the Chinese literature department. The flier explained that [Deng] wanted to gather a group of like-minded classmates to rent a non-commercial apartment. At that time Beida’s student culture wasn’t very upstanding. The university had too few dormitories. Surrounding the campus were all sorts of commercial apartments. . . . The students referred to the landlords as shopkeepers (zhanggui), and to the other attendants as waiters (chafang) or servants (tingchai). The owners and attendants called the students sir (xiansheng). Very few students who lived in these places were hard working. They were not interested in the world’s events, and instead spent all their time playing mahjong, pursuing prostitutes, or at the theater.31

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The twenty plus students who joined together with Deng Zhongxia to form the Garden of Morning Light (Xiyuan) commune rented a Beijingstyle courtyard dwelling in which no manager or attendants were present.32 Commune members performed chores that would have been performed by servants at a commercial apartment house (purchasing foodstuffs, cooking, cleaning, collecting water from the well), agreed to stay away from banquet halls, the theater district, and the pleasure quarter, and pledged never to become officials, take concubines, or patronize prostitutes. They also pooled money to subscribe to New Culture periodicals from around the country and undertook an ambitious program of group study, reading widely in and discussing classics in natural science (works by Ernst Haeckel, William Harvey, and Geoffrey de SaintHilaire) and the humanistic disciplines (works by Plato, Thomas More, Rousseau, Robert Owen, Marx, Hegel, and Nietzsche). Because they read most of these works in their original languages, the commune members divided them up and reported on them according to their foreignlanguage abilities and academic interests.33 Most Garden of Morning Light members also participated in the Beijing University Commoners’ Education Lecture Society. In addition to lecturing on streetcorners and in lecture halls, in early 1920 brigades of speakers began traveling by train to meet with workers and peasants in the nearby villages of Haidian, Fengtai, and Changxindian, the latter a Beijing-Hankou railroad junction forty miles from the capital. Though not all of these excursions were successful—sometimes the students attracted no more than a handful of spectators, many of them children— by the end of the year members of the brigade had established a journal for Changxindian’s railroad workers entitled Workers’ Voice (Laodong yin).34 The Lecture Society also founded a school for Changxindian’s workers at which Beida students served as the instructors. As Daniel Kwan observes, the success of these efforts owed much to the fact that the student activists were connected to the Beijing Communist Small Group. That group was founded in summer 1919 by Li Dazhao with the assistance of Zhang Ximan (who had studied in Russia and who had a dual appointment at Beida teaching Russian and working in the library with Li), under the influence of G. Voitinsky, a Comintern representative.35 In March 1920 Li secretly organized China’s first association devoted to the study of Marxism, the Beijing University Society for the Study of Marxist Theory (Beijing daxue Makesi xueshu yanjiuhui), several of whose members belonged to the Garden of Morning Light commune. Students gravitated to Li’s warm and unassuming per-


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sonality, and when he subsequently founded the Beijing Communist Small Group (Beijing gongchan zhuyi xiaozu) most members of the Marxist Study Society joined. However, at this stage, as Dirlik observes, few of these young people were theoretically sophisticated or ideologically exclusive Marxists. They were, rather, sympathetic to the plight of working people, attracted to the idea of revolutionary social change, and increasingly disillusioned by the open-ended nature of the New Culture Movement.36 Garden of Morning Light lasted for almost a year, breaking up in summer 1920. Its existence corresponded to the high point of the “laborlearning mutual-aid” (gongdu huzhu) movement inspired by Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid that began in Beijing and swept through New Culture enclaves across China in 1919 and 1920 before quickly burning out.37 The best-known group was the Labor-learning Mutual-aid Organization (Gongdu huzhu tuan), founded in late 1919 by Wang Guangqi, head of the Young China Association. Wang’s group was closely associated with Beida and received public backing and financial assistance from many leading faculty members, including Cai Yuanpei, Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Li Xinbai, Gao Yihan, and Zhou Zuoren. At its largest, it enrolled some 120 people, divided into four groups. Members did not necessarily live together, but they were required to work four hours per day in one of their group’s enterprises—these included a film house, a laundry, a vegetarian restaurant, a shop that produced stamps carved in stone, and another that produced garments. Two of the four groups were directly associated with Beijing University, and one was associated with Beijing Women’s Normal College. The founding of a labor-learning mutual-aid group made up of women is highly noteworthy—but even more revolutionary, since it took direct aim at the strict social segregation between the sexes, was the fact that the Beida groups encouraged females to enroll as equals.38 At this time, the idea that men and women might converse freely, let alone take classes together, was anathema to the majority of the public. Popular teahouses provided separate entrances for men and women, women were not permitted to enter a number of the theaters in Beijing, and in those that they were allowed to enter they were not permitted to sit together with men. On this point, Beida student Tian Jiongjin recalled an instance when a newlywed couple attended an opera. Because the couple wanted to sit together, the man dressed himself like a woman in order to sit with his wife in the women’s section. When he was discovered and paraded about in the street by the police, nobody in the crowd defended the man;

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instead, they encouraged the police to be even harsher in their punishment of him.39 In such an atmosphere it was virtually unthinkable that members of the two sexes might participate in a common sociopolitical experiment such as the labor-learning mutual-aid movement. As the May Fourth student leader Xu Deheng explained: The night before the May Fourth demonstration, in order to link up with female students, a few classmates and I visited the Beijing Women’s Normal College, where two female student representatives hosted us in a large hall, along with a woman supervisor. We sat at one end, the female students at the other, and the woman supervisor sat in between. The hall was so large and we students so far apart, that . . . it was difficult for the males and females to hear one another. But speaking loudly was impolite, so for much of the exchange we had to rely on the woman supervisor seated between us to convey our words back and forth to one another.40

But in the radicalized environment of these years, social conventions seemed to exist to be challenged. The political concerns that prompted the labor-learning mutual-aid groups to seek to build a healthier society led inexorably to the conviction that it was necessary to challenge stultifying cultural traditions. Cun Tong (Chen Gongpei), an activist in one of the labor-learning groups affiliated with Beida, wrote: “This organization of ours is an experiment in the new life . . . the new life isn’t something with which males alone can experiment. . . . If there are only males, and no females, [then] from society’s point of view, this will appear to be a person who is paralyzed on one side. We are striving to create whole people, we support males and females sharing a common life.”41 Although the students at Beida who energetically embraced the vision of the “new woman” (xinnüxing)—entitled to an education and a professional career as well as free choice in marriage and the right to participate in public life—were outspoken, they were decidedly in the minority. Moreover, the male intellectuals who did champion women’s issues “were greatly empowered by advocating women’s emancipation, because in doing so, they assumed the position of liberator as well as leaders of new morality.” In terms of cultural power and insofar as they had desirable, modern marriage partners, then, male advocates of women’s liberation stood to gain; nevertheless, there was not necessarily a connection between the language of liberation that progressive men spoke and the way they treated the women with whom they were personally involved. As Wang Zheng observes, “Their treatment of women


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in their daily life (and even in their writing) often reflects the old culture rather than the new culture.”42

lifting the ban on women The argument in favor of bringing women into the New Life Movement took place within the context of a larger struggle to open Beijing University to female students. Although progressives had been agitating to allow males and females to attend schools together since the first decade of the century, by the May Fourth era only a handful of schools offered higher education to Chinese women. By 1916, for example, the total number of female students enrolled in secondary schools nationwide was a paltry 8,000. Most New Culture intellectuals were highly critical of this state of affairs. At a December 1918 ceremony marking the twentyfirst anniversary of Beida’s founding, Li Shizeng urged that the university enroll female students, but the subject did not attract widespread attention until spring 1919, when Cai Yuanpei delivered a series of speeches on the importance of female education.43 Cai had been a founder of the Patriotic Girls School in Shanghai in 1903, and during his brief stint as Minister of Education in 1912 he had decreed that boys and girls be allowed to attend elementary school together. In March and April 1919, when he publicly praised the foreign practice of allowing males and females to attend the same schools and colleges, Cai unleashed a wave of student activism centered on the goal of allowing women to attend classes at the National University—a position the chancellor had not yet explicitly supported in public. Just as this cause was gaining momentum, however, the May Fourth Movement turned people’s attention in another direction. In an effort to keep attention focused on the female question, Kang Baiqing contributed an essay to the Morning Post on May 20 in which he argued that the orderly and useful contribution female middle-school students made to the protest movement demonstrated why women should be admitted to the university.44 Critically, however, it was Deng Chunlan, an ambitious young woman from Gansu whose father had attended the Jingshi daxuetang and one of whose brothers was then a Beida student, who did the most to press the issue. Upon reading the text of one of Cai Yuanpei’s speeches in support of coeducation, Deng penned a letter to him requesting permission to enroll at the National University. In August 1919 she published her letter in Beijing’s Morning Post and Shanghai’s Republican Times:

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[I, Deng] Chunlan began studying at a young age and admire the theory of equality between the sexes. Equality in occupation, of political rights and in every other sphere will, in addition to raising our women’s character and according with humanitarianism, enable the other half of our population to contribute to the country’s self-strengthening. . . . Recently I saw the text of [the talk] . . . in which you called for equality between the sexes. If women of my generation are not allowed to enroll as students at the National University, how long will we have to wait? I reviewed the policy made by your school’s faculty policy-making council regarding the founding of a preparatory middle school. . . . [I] Chunlan, representing our country’s women, implore you, sir, to add a class for female students in that preparatory middle school.

Deng declared that she intended to organize students to work for the abolition of the restriction on women at Beida and that she would spare no energy in pursuing this goal.45 Deng Chunlan helped reignite the movement on behalf of coeducation. Young China devoted its October 1919 issue to women’s concerns and included a contribution by Deng herself on women’s emancipation and another by Wu Ruonan (whose husband was Zhang Shizhao) on the reasons why Chinese families needed to be reorganized. The journal’s editor, Wang Guangqi, commissioned a lead article by Hu Shi on the question of admitting women to the university. As was intended, Hu’s public endorsement of coeducation generated a groundswell of support for the cause. Hu recommended that females be admitted to Beida first as auditors and later as regular students, and he also proposed that the university hire female professors to cultivate an atmosphere receptive to coeducation. A year later, he would play an instrumental role in the hiring of Beida’s first female faculty member, Chen Hengzhe, who taught Western history.46 In January 1920 Cai Yuanpei declared that he intended to allow qualified female students to register at the National University. Shortly thereafter, a student named Wang Lan from Beijing Women’s Normal College asked her brother, Wang Kunlun, a Beida student, to appeal to Cai to let her sit in on classes at the National University. In February, three women—Wang Lan, Xi Zhen, and Cha Xiaoyuan—were admitted as auditors. After that, Deng Chunlan and five other women were also admitted. According to Gu Jiegang, on the day it was announced that the first three women had been admitted, students snapped up copies of the Beijing University Daily so quickly that he was unable to locate one. Male students in whose classes the women sat were bombarded with questions about how the women behaved and how they themselves felt


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about having females in class. Tian Jiongjin, who had three women in his philosophy classes, reported that they sat in separate seats removed from the other students, were highly serious, and hardly uttered a word.47 The admission of female auditors at Beida was a signal event throughout China, as is indicated by references to it in two important works of fiction from the era, Mao Dun’s Rainbow and Ba Jin’s Family.48 Newspapers and periodicals across the country reported the news. In July 1920 Young World published a lengthy article by Beida student and New Tide Society stalwart, Xu Chanzhi, in which he discussed the movement that eventuated in the admission of the first female students. Xu also interviewed several of the women and asked them to tell their own stories. The women related how limited they felt by the education offered them at their previous schools and also expressed great excitement at the opportunity that had opened to them. A couple of them also displayed a strong awareness of themselves as part of a vanguard. Cha Xiaoyuan stated: “Beijing University’s admission of nine female students constitutes for co-education in China—indeed for the liberation of women— the opening of a great new path. As long as we struggle hard, make sacrifices, and establish ourselves based on the spirit of mutual-aid, women from all over the country will surely strive to come here.” Wang Lan was less optimistic that the admission of the first female students would result in a flood of applications from women around the country. Many women who wanted to apply probably were prevented from doing so by their families, she said, or else they feared that, if they applied and things did not go well, they would be subject to ridicule and humiliation. Indeed, since breaking the gender barrier put one at odds with mainstream society, any young women willing to do so had to possess great courage and conviction. Wang Lan urged women to dispense with their old values, to struggle against families that wished to hold them back, and in general to join the movement working to create a new culture in China.49 Cai Yuanpei and his colleagues were well aware of the need to prevent even a hint of scandal from arising, for they knew that critics were waiting to pounce on the slightest problem as evidence that men and women did not belong together at the same university. For nothing threatened conservatives more than New Culture attacks on the traditional family system. As discussed, a year earlier Cai had been forced to defend New Tide after the journal published an article calling for women’s liberation. The mantra of “free love” (ziyou lian’ai) that was in the air at this time, and which found expression in particular in the labor-learning mutual-aid movement, led many in society to judge fe-

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male students as morally reprehensible. According to one former student, “girl radicals” who took part in the movement “bobbed their hair, hunched their backs over books, shouted from meeting platforms and lived with students without marriage, openly, changing their ‘friends’ without much thought.” “The Peking philistines,” the account continues, “snorted and choked with indignation. They made their daughters cross the street at the sight of the disheveled head of a girl student.”50 By summer 1920 Duan Qirui’s government had been turned out of power and the new strongmen in charge, Cao Kun, head of the Zhili Clique, and Zhang Zuolin, head of the Fengtian Clique, made highly threatening remarks about Cai Yuanpei, ominously alluding to the need to do something about the chancellor who supported “common wives and common property” (gongqi gongchan). Aware that he was in danger, Cai departed soon after on a ten-month tour of European and American universities and research institutions.51 Despite all the controversy, the enrollment of female students failed to bring dramatic change to Beida’s culture. A sizable number of students still frequented the brothel quarters, where “disreputable” women plied their trade, and Beida’s female students had little to do with their male classmates. Nor did the number of women grow significantly larger very quickly. By 1923 there were just over thirty female students. By 1926 the number had grown to sixty-one, or 3.3 percent of the student body. By then, a woman’s dormitory and a Female Student Society (Nü tongxuehui) had been established, but Beida’s female students, whose names most of their male classmates did not even know, nevertheless remained an isolated minority group on campus throughout the 1920s.52 Even so, for some Beida students, the females’ presence was highly disconcerting. For instance, Ma Jue, the daughter of the chair of the Chinese department, Ma Youyu, was frequently harassed by male classmates enchanted by her beauty; in a memoir, Ma recalled the many anonymous letters praising her looks that she received and how unhappy they made her.53 Writing in 1929, a student named Xin An blamed females for their own isolation, failing to consider the possibility that what he took to be the women’s aloofness and haughtiness might well have been a natural reaction on their part to the intimidating male chauvinist culture in which they found themselves. “For a whole year they sit together in the same lecture hall, sometimes on the same benches, but [male and female classmates] never say a word to one another, and when they pass on the street they don’t even nod at one another. . . . I’m afraid this is unique to Beijing University! I’m afraid this is an odd consequence of the twentieth-


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century effort to elevate women’s rights!” Before he concluded, Xin An became even more accusatory and nasty: “Female students . . . I hope you won’t put on airs . . . you need to know that Beijing University is an academic research institution, not an exhibition hall for young misses. . . . You should know that Beijing University isn’t a temple for queens, and that you shouldn’t behave like female Bodhisattvas!”54 It is probable that Xin An, who obviously felt threatened by Beida’s female students, was speaking for many of his classmates when he published such comments. A decade after the May Fourth Movement, the New Culture commitment to sexual equality had not significantly loosened the tenacious hold of traditional mores pertaining to relations between the sexes.

new culture elitism The conviction that women deserved to be educated, like the commitment to schooling poor and illiterate workers, reflected the extent to which progressive intellectuals at Beida had begun to move away from the ingrained beliefs that only certain types of (male) people were entitled to lead and that an unbridgeable gap separated those who worked with their minds from those who worked with their hands. Even though the process turned out to be quite slow and difficult, the move to admit females to the university was consistent with other efforts undertaken by Beida’s New Culture leaders to lessen the distance between themselves and those sectors of Chinese society that traditionally had little access to education. Following the May Fourth Movement, the emphasis for progressives was clearly on breaking down social barriers and opening up new lines of communication. In addition to the Beijing University Commoners’ Education Society and the school for workers in Changxindian discussed earlier, in January 1920 the Beida Students’ Association opened a co-educational Commoners’ Night School, which expanded on the work of the Night School for University Workers opened in 1918. As of March 1920, 350 students had enrolled at the night school, 110 of them females. These people ranged in age from six to thirty-eight and came from among the ranks of the city’s poorer classes.55 Signs of this rising consciousness of social class were plain to see. In a January 1920 article for Eastern Miscellany about the interconnections between education, society, and politics, Shao Piaoping, editor-in-chief of the Peking Press and instructor for the Beijing University Journalism Society, enjoined professors and students

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to learn about the needs of commoners and thereby know better how to help them. Indeed, Shao Piaoping was a well-known advocate of what he called “social news” (shehui xinwen)—reporting on ordinary, poor people’s daily struggles—which he claimed was more revealing of society’s makeup than stories on politics, diplomatic relations, or finance.56 In this spirit, in March 1920, Beijing University Students’ Weekly published “The Sound of a Destitute Person’s Cry,” a short story about an impoverished family, and in the special May Day issue devoted to the subject of labor, the Weekly ran an article discussing the plight of the large number of beggars and rickshaw men that filled the streets of the capital. Likewise, New Life, the Beida journal aimed at a commoner audience, published stories about rickshaw men, pitiable Beijing women, and laborers of the lowest rank. Writing about the conditions of the urban poor, Li Dazhao stated: “Depressed, dull, filthy, slow, inconvenient, uneconomical, unsanitary, uninteresting—these are the characteristics of the lives of Beijing’s commoners. If we had to live like that for a long time, I’m afraid we’d wish for death.”57 Elsewhere, Beida student Tao Dun recalled having a “moving” conversation with a worker in one of the university’s dormitories who earned barely enough money to support his family. “I realized that the eleven dollars I pay for my apartment and meals plus the two dollars I spend on miscellaneous items every month adds up to . . . more money than what most commoner families in Beijing [spend to survive for a month].”58 There can be no doubt that Beijing intellectuals were aware of the suffering of those who surrounded them. Nevertheless, Beida professor Ding Wenjiang, who was himself deeply concerned about China’s social and political problems, spoke for many when he averred in the mid1920s that converting “one hundred rickshaw men” to his and his colleagues’ way of thinking was not as valuable as converting even “one of the people who rides in a rickshaw.” Elitist populism was perhaps the most natural style of thinking for men like Ding, who integrated the belief that intellectuals were society’s rightful leaders with a belief in democratic and egalitarian ideals. As had those who belonged to the cosmopolitan elite of the past, those in the Republican era stayed within their own social class. Criticizing this tendency, Gu Jiegang wrote in 1925: “We educated ones are too far from the people; we consider ourselves cultured gentlemen and them as vulgar.”59 For most people at the National University it was possible to live life at a comfortable distance from the urban poor. One might hear their cries at night, read in the newspapers about beggars who froze to death in the streets, or occa-


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sionally enjoy spectacles put on by acrobats and other performers at places like Tianqiao, but otherwise have little substantive contact with the poor.60 Elitism was common among progressive professors and students at this time. Explaining why he and his classmates got involved in the movement to educate commoners, Deng Xihua stated: “If the revolution was to be accomplished by coolies, how would they be able to accomplish it? Surely not by sitting endlessly . . . and playing dice, by bending under yokes with heavy baskets, by bawling the same unintelligible songs which they did not understand, or by sweeping the university courts. They were not even able to sign their names.”61 Intellectuals held out little hope for the poor and illiterate so long as such unfortunates failed to recognize that their worldview was built upon an unreliable foundation of superstition. As Schwarcz writes, “To appeal to the masses’ critical intelligence entailed, at the same time, a questioning of the masses’ previously held beliefs. Student lecturers bent upon awakening the common people began to attack the common people’s own habits of mind.”62 Disdain for popular culture comes across clearly in the journal New Life. Critical of the habit of pasting rhymed couplets outside doorways to usher in the New Year, which he called an “absolutely meaningless practice,” Miu Jinyuan suggested that his classmates supply commoners with scrolls inscribed with edifying messages. Anticipating the politicization of cultural practices under the Nationalists and Communists, Miu proposed rhymed couplets with obvious political meanings: “Always maintain a youthful spirit, never become enslaved to people with old values”; “Without learning and without work, why do I exist? I dress and eat for no reason, does this count as being human?”; “The spirit of mutual aid guarantees world peace, labor is the root of humanity’s existence.”63 This example suggests just how powerful New Culture supporters believed the written word to be, even when it was a question of communicating with illiterate people. The commitment to a “new life” manifested itself in a wide range of practices, but progressive intellectuals probably poured more energy into journalism and publishing than they did into any other activity. Nevertheless, as time wore on, New Culture leaders became critical of faddishness and intellectual laziness within the movement itself. In fact, some Beida student leaders greeted the proliferation of student journals with reservations from the very beginning. In September 1919, for instance, just before he departed to pursue studies at London University, Fu Sinian wrote in New Tide:

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I feel that too many periodicals have come into being, and that this is evidence of immaturity. In today’s apathetic and uninformed society it is of course necessary to have many tools to awaken [people]. However, it is important to pay attention to the building up of real strength: if it is vented too early, or with too much ferocity, it might not help and in fact could damage [our] future [prospects].64

Shortly after Fu published these comments, Zheng Zhenduo, a student at the Railroad Management College with close ties to Beida, aired similar concerns in an article on China’s publishing industry. Zheng worried that students were relying on magazines to educate themselves instead of diving into serious study. “Gentlemen! Magazines merely provide reference material, we should not invest time in them that we should be spending on scientific research!” Eight months later, Luo Jialun struck a similar note in New Tide when he accused students of being impetuous and lazy and of thinking that they could solve China’s problems without hard work.65 The tone emanating from some New Culture leaders, then, was scolding, underscoring the extent to which they wished to set themselves up as arbiters of proper consciousness and to maintain the movement’s intellectual rigor so it did not dwindle off into popularized drivel. By late 1920, as new journals became even more plentiful, such criticisms were increasingly commonplace. In October a group of Beida students led by Yi Junzuo and Luo Dunwei founded Criticism (Piping), a journal circulated by Shanghai’s Republican Times. The journal’s founders asserted that unless criticism was based in research it could not qualify as real criticism, and that too few so-called critics were willing to reflect honestly on their own weaknesses. In a particularly vituperative article entitled “The Defects and Bankruptcy of the So-called ‘New Culture Movement,’ ” Miu Jinyuan lashed out at classmates who insisted on publishing articles even though they had nothing new to say, and, as had Zheng Zhenduo a year before, he lamented that people preferred reading journals to engaging in serious and systematic study.66 In December 1920 a group of Beida students, most of whom were enrolled in the law division, founded yet another new periodical, Commentary on Commentary (Pinglun zhi pinglun). These students exhibited as little patience for trendiness and dilettantism as those who wrote for Criticism. They, too, seemed intent on distinguishing themselves from the mainstream of the New Culture Movement in order to elevate their own importance and influence, declaring that their goal was to transform the mindless chatter that sounded around them into a force worthy of being called a “cultural movement.”67


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There is in such criticism a definite echo of the intellectual’s bias against journalistic writing. But the people making these attacks were themselves doing so through a journalistic medium, which suggests that for them the issue was no longer whether intellectuals should engage in journalism, but rather how they should do so. A new field of power had come into play, which meant that not everyone who dressed himself up as a journalist could be accorded a place at the table. In the competition for audience share, certain people and voices had to be excluded, or at least labeled inferior. This is seen in the lengthy articles on the relative strengths and weaknesses of Beijing’s newspapers that Chen Guyuan and Zhou Changxian published in Commentary on Commentary. Echoing the critique put forth by the leaders of the Beida Journalism Society, Chen and Zhou had few positive things to say about most newspapers, finding them vapid in the extreme, politically uninspired, full of unsubstantiated rumors, and all too willing to publish gossip about prostitutes and advertisements for medical products of dubious value. As tools for educating and lifting up the common people, the two Beida students complained, most newspapers in the capital—and, by extension, all of China—were utterly worthless.68 Many Beida students who were disgusted by existing newspapers became directly involved in that medium, often making respectable sums of money (up to eight dollars per article) in the process. The three student founders of the New Knowledge Compilation and Translation Society are an example: Cheng Shewo served as editor-in-chief of Tianjin’s Social Welfare Daily; Luo Dunwei was the editor of the literary supplement to the Peking Press; and Yi Jiayue was able to support himself, his wife, and his baby by writing articles for several different publications. In 1921, Sun Fuyuan, who had been an editor for New Tide, became the editor-in-chief of the Morning Post Literary Supplement, the most important literary supplement in the capital. Thereafter, he solicited articles, opinion pieces, translations, and transcriptions from among his former teachers and classmates at the National University. By early 1922 so many students at the National University—well over two hundred— were working for newspapers that they established a Beida Reporters’ Society (Beida xinwen jizhe tongzhihui) to look out for their collective interests.69 Journalistic writing, which had started at Beida with a trickle in the late 1910s, had become commonplace. Not only does this demonstrate that the May Fourth generation of students had come to look upon news reporting as a dignified profession, it also throws light on one important means by which the university successfully expanded the reach of the intellectual’s voice within society.

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connecting to the cultural marketplace New Culture activists were also highly critical of China’s book publishing industry, which was centered in Shanghai. In their criticism, it is possible to detect a rather old-fashioned and elitist subtext, one that considered pandering to the market tantamount to profiteering, a most undignified behavior for intellectuals. In some cases the accusation of profiteering was explicit. For example, in the same article in which he attacked students for spending too much time reading magazines, Zheng Zhenduo accused publishing houses of peddling supernatural tales and stories about sinister plots and scandals rather than edifying books in step with New Culture concerns. Zheng also railed against opportunistic publishers who raced to produce imitations of successful works marketed by their competitors. This type of opportunism and desire for profits endangered Chinese culture, Zheng claimed, since few publishers would take risks with serious books for which there was small demand.70 Similarly, in an article for Commentary on Commentary, Beida student Yan Xiangti accused China’s publishers of catering to the crudest tastes of the literary marketplace. Shanghai’s bookstores mostly sold vulgar books, said Yan, and thus contributed little to the strengthening of Chinese society. To those who claimed that China already had a wellinformed public, and that it was most developed in Shanghai, Yan responded that a quick look at the low level of literature sold in that city’s bookstores revealed how many obstacles there still were to the widespread acceptance of New Culture thinking. Yan Xiangti concluded by calling on New Culture supporters to shame the publishing industry into concentrating on the production of serious, scholarly books.71 Lazy, attention-seeking intellectuals were bad enough, in other words, but if one really wanted to get to the heart of the matter, it was necessary to look at those merchants of literary trash who were more concerned with profits than they were with the public good. The largest publisher of them all, the Commercial Press, became a prime target of attack, despite the linkages it had established with the National University before the May Fourth Movement. From the point of view of figures like Chen Duxiu and Luo Jialun, representatives of the teacher and student generations, respectively, the problem with the Commercial Press was that it was hugely influential but intellectually backward. Seeking cultural hegemony for their New Culture voices, people like Chen and Luo attacked Commercial Press journals such as Eastern Miscellany and Short Story Monthly (Xiaoshuo yuebao) because they were still being printed


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in Classical Chinese, and because the articles and literature they carried were traditional and unenlightened. However, as Lee has noted, ironically, “The typical May Fourth journal was more self-important, less tolerant, and more often ephemeral” than eclectic “middlebrow” journals such as Eastern Miscellany. Among other things, the middlebrow journals gave more sympathetic coverage to the argument that Chinese tradition should not be thrown out wholesale in favor of a Western model of modernity that was itself flawed.72 New Culture intellectuals believed the written word should remain unsullied by the corrupting demands of the marketplace and scholars should remain unmoved by the lure of profits. Enlightenment, not moneymaking, was where morally righteous scholars and publishers were to put their energies. Even before May Fourth, a number of New Culture leaders at Beida had tried to put these values into practice by establishing a translation bureau (bianyichu) to publish foreign scholarship. Among the translation bureau’s founders were luminaries such as Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, Gao Yihan, Tao Menghe, and Liu Wendian; the actual publishing was to be done by the university’s publishing office, which also began printing the collected lecture materials of Beida’s most famous professors. The titles of those works were regularly advertised on the front page of the university newspaper, and in his article on the publishing industry Zheng Zhenduo identified this Beijing University book series (Beijing daxue congshu) as a model of enlightened publishing.73 Student leaders, too, rushed into the publication of academic books. In the essay in which he faulted the majority of New Culture journals for their immaturity, for example, Fu Sinian laid out the New Tide Society’s plans for a series of books on social science, another on intellectual history, and a third on art and literature. In February 1920 the New Tide book series (Xinchao congshu) published its first two titles: Wang Xinggong’s On the Scientific Method (Kexue fangfa lun), and Chen Daji’s Superstition and Psychology (Mixin yu xinli).74 At roughly the same time, Cheng Shewo, Luo Dunwei, Yi Junzuo, and others founded the New Knowledge Compilation and Translation Society (Xinzhi bianyishe). The organizers of this society intended one day to establish their own printing house, but for the time being they would work on a contract basis with publishers who were willing to take a chance on their translations. One such publisher was the Shanghai-based Far East Book Company, publisher of the journal Family Research (Jiating yanjiu), which advocated family reform and women’s liberation, and of a book coauthored by two of the leading spirits behind that journal, Yi Junzuo and Luo

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Dunwei, entitled The Chinese Family Problem (Zhongguo jiating wenti). The book was circulated on a nationwide basis and sold out four separate printings.75 Clearly, some Shanghai publishers recognized that publishing New Culture works and making a profit were not antithetical propositions. Indeed, despite intellectuals’ criticisms of the publishing industry, publishing to make money and to enlighten developed hand in hand in the early twentieth century, and in the process helped forge what Lee refers to as a Shanghai “imaginary of modernity” whose reach extended far beyond that city. From this perspective, as Yeh has observed, the dawning of “modernity was about business rather than politics.”76 In the early stages of the New Culture Movement, it was often smaller publishing companies looking to break into the market that took risks with politically charged material. As Wang Yuanfang, a leading figure at the East Asia Book Company (Yadong tushuguan), which published The Tiger and New Youth, later explained, “At that time the large publishing houses were very hesitant, but we were quite courageous.” Caught in the ambivalent position of seeking profit from the sale of a cultural good not comfortably thought of as a “product,” these smaller publishers could soothe that part of their consciences still bound up by the anticommercial ethos of the old-style literati by viewing their business as progressive and important to the nation.77 The criticisms of large publishing houses made by progressive intellectuals undoubtedly stung, but it was likely the commercial success that small publishers had with New Culture titles that clarified for establishment publishing companies just how profitable “the business of enlightenment” could be.78 If they were to lay claim to a share of the New Culture market, such publishers had to cultivate close relations within the Beijing intellectual world, a project that fit well with most book merchants’ desire to emphasize their ties to the scholarly world.79 For example, on the eve of the May Fourth Movement, Cai Yuanpei and Zhang Yuanji agreed to put publication of the Beijing University Monthly in the hands of the Commercial Press. Zhang also contracted to publish lecture materials and a collection of original research monographs. Among the monographs by Beijing University professors published this way were Hu Shi’s Outline History of Ancient Chinese Philosophy (Zhongguo gudai zhexueshi dagang), Chen Daji’s Outline of Psychology (Xinlixue dagang), Xu Baohuang’s Basics of Journalism (Xinwenxue dayi), and Tao Menghe’s Society and Education (Shehui yu jiaoyu).80 In 1921 the Commercial Press sought to strengthen its New Culture


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credentials by offering Chen Duxiu three hundred dollars per month to serve as a freelance editor and Hu Shi the tremendous monthly salary of one thousand dollars to serve as editor-in-chief. Hu Shi responded that a press whose publications reached hundreds of thousands of students certainly had greater influence than Beijing University, but after carefully considering the offer he instead recommended that the Commercial Press hire his former teacher, Wang Yunwu, to fill the position, which it did.81 Wang Yunwu had close ties not only to Hu Shi, but also to Cai Yuanpei. These connections, in addition to the enduring friendship between Cai Yuanpei and Zhang Yuanji—the two were both from Zhejiang, passed the juren and jinshi examinations in the same years, and then served together in the Hanlin Academy—undergirded the close relationship between China’s largest commercial publisher and its leading university.82 In November 1920 the Commercial Press hired Beida graduate Shen Yanbing (Mao Dun) to edit Short Story Monthly and, on Shen’s recommendation, Zheng Zhenduo to edit a series of books written by authors belonging to the recently founded Literary Association (Wenxue yanjiuhui). Many of the founding members of the Literary Association were students or professors at Beijing University, and over the next few years that association served as an important bridge linking intellectuals living or trained in Beijing to the Shanghai publishing world. Indeed, the movement south of key personnel from the Literary Association accelerated the process whereby Shanghai overtook Beijing as the center of modern Chinese literary arts in the 1920s.83

living in the capital Comparatively speaking, professors earned considerably more money than did their students from the explosion of interest in academic and literary writing on the part of the print media and commercial publishing houses. Commercial Press and the other big Shanghai publishing houses actively solicited manuscripts and were willing to pay top dollar to secure them. Indeed, by this time, payment for manuscripts constituted the greatest single expense for most presses.84 For example, Liu Fu sold the rights to his Complete Study of Chinese Grammar (Zhongguo wenfa tonglun) to the Commercial Press for two hundred dollars—roughly what he was paid per month for teaching at Beida. And Liu was not unique in this regard. Given that a growing number of professors could avail themselves of such opportunities on top of salaries that ranged from two hundred to three hundred dollars a month, one can safely as-

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sert that they lived very comfortably at this time. They were not in Beijing’s wealthiest class—which, according to police census figures from the mid-1920s quoted by Strand, constituted 5 percent of the city’s population and was made up of “rich merchants, bankers, and high officials”—but they did belong to the 22 percent of the population who made up Beijing’s middle class. As such, professors enjoyed a standard of living well beyond that of the majority of the city’s residents, 47 percent of whom belonged to the “lower class,” 9 percent to the “very poor,” and 17 percent to the “extremely poor.”85 Beijing’s poverty rate, like its population, climbed dramatically in the late 1910s and 1920s, owing to a flood of dispossessed peasants exiled from the north China countryside by civil wars and the lack of employment opportunities in the capital.86 Sidney Gamble, who compiled information about Beijing’s social conditions in the late 1910s, noted that in spite of laws banning beggars from the city’s streets, “one can hear the beggar’s call . . . in almost every hut’ung (lane) in the city.” “Even on the main thoroughfares,” wrote Gamble, “beggars ply their trade and, running along beside the rickshas, beseech alms.” Prostitution had long prospered in Beijing, owing to the large number of well-to-do men who spent time there apart from their families, but after 1911 the practice was legalized and taxed by the government. This resulted in a steady rise in the number of brothels; according to Gamble, whereas there were 353 houses of prostitution in Beijing in 1912, by 1917 the number had jumped to 406.87 In spite of, or perhaps partially owing to, these demographic trends, intellectuals generally lived well. The city’s depressed economy kept prices low, so that even students from less well-to-do families could make out nicely. Such students could support themselves by working, most frequently by writing for newspapers and journals or by serving as elementary school teachers or household tutors.88 Apartments in mansions converted for new use by downwardly mobile aristocratic families opened up all over the Inner City, and especially in the Shatan neighborhood surrounding Beida. These were relatively inexpensive to rent, especially if, as was common, a student shared the space with a group of his co-provincials. Reflecting the nationwide reach of this population, the plentiful and inexpensive restaurants in the Shatan neighborhood catered to tastes from all over the country.89 Xu Qinwen recalled that “in Shatan there were many small eateries where one could order a dish for a few coppers . . . the clerks always looked after me very well,” and according to Tao Dun, at many of these establishments students were given


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discounted prices if they paid for a month’s worth of meals in advance. Tao was able to make do at Beida for a year on two hundred and fifty yuan—eighty of which he received in the form of a stipend from the Shandong provincial Education Ministry, forty of which came from the education bureau of his home county, and the rest from his family. Less well off students also frequented the nearby Capital Library (Jingshi tushuguan), where they could study in a warm place and help themselves to free tea.90 Like the cosmopolitan elite of late imperial times, the majority of the National University’s professors (and students) were outsiders to the capital who hailed from Jiangnan or points farther south. Professors frequently lived in courtyard homes (siheyuan), owned their own rickshaws, and employed their own pullers—often Manchu bannermen fallen on hard times—as well as various and sundry cooks and nursemaids (baomu).91 Li Shuhua, a French-trained physicist who began teaching at Beida in 1922 for a salary of 280 dollars a month, noted that anyone willing to spend 100 dollars per month could easily afford to rent a home with over twenty rooms, as well as hire a cook, a house servant, and a rickshaw puller. Li also stated that some professors bought mansions as investment properties, which they then rented out.92 Few of them spoke the local Beijing dialect, meaning that in addition to being at a cultural and social remove, they were also linguistically marked and separated from the local population. Given the comfort in which they lived, it is not surprising that in diaries, memoirs, and literary essays about Beijing during this era intellectuals often express nostalgic fondness. They praise the variety and excellence of the city’s restaurants and recall with relish the frequent banquets they attended with their friends, often ten or twelve at a table.93 Wu Yu’s diary, for example, offers plentiful evidence of the rich social life that he and his colleagues enjoyed. Wu constantly joined friends for banquet-style dinners; often he was a guest, but he also played host (on one occasion to nearly a dozen of his Beida colleagues) at a restaurant where he dined often. In addition, many intellectuals were Beijing opera aficionados who regularly dropped in on the city’s numerous opera houses after dinner, happily paying one or two dollars for a ticket to see the big stars.94 But Beijing’s teahouses, especially those located in the Central (Zhongyang) Park and Beihai Park, were the most popular congregating spots of all. In numerous essays by intellectuals, teahouses such as Changmei xuan, Chunming guan, and Laijin yuxuan are mentioned with great affection. At suitable times of year, members of Beijing’s elite went

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to these places to spend leisurely and inexpensive hours nibbling on snacks, playing chess, drinking tea, reading, chatting, and enjoying nature. In his diary, Wu Yu recorded frequent visits to teahouses at the Central Park, which was a favorite destination for Beida’s students and faculty because of the park’s beauty and its proximity to the university.95 Xu Qinwen, for example, recalled the teahouse’s relaxed atmosphere: At the park when one sat in a rattan chair drinking a pot of tea or sipping a soft drink a newspaper hawker would set a pile of the day’s newspapers before you—Beijing’s Morning Post, Tianjin’s Social Welfare Daily, Shanghai’s Republican Times and others. When done reading you merely had to place a copper on the newspapers; you could leave whenever you chose, without waiting for the hawker to claim the copper. This way one could read several newspapers without having to spend much money.96

Those who visited the city’s parks (many were converted imperial gardens) seldom had to rub shoulders with the destitute, the insane, or the intoxicated, since beggars and other “undesirables” were strictly forbidden entrance.97 One visited different teahouses for different crowds. Laijin yuxuan, which, roughly translated, means “a good place to meet new friends,” was, along with the salons held in people’s homes, a center of literary culture in the 1920s, and is where many Western-educated intellectuals could be found. On the other hand, more old-fashioned intellectuals tended to frequent Chunming guan.98 Many intellectuals also wrote about the wonderful book shopping available at Liulichang. Lu Xun recorded almost five hundred trips to Liulichang to shop for books, and many other people mention “Culture Street” (Wenhuajie) as well. A center of high cultural commerce since the mid-eighteenth century, Liulichang was affectionately known as “Culture Street” not only because of the dozens of used-book dealers located there, but also for the shops that sold ink, grinding stones, paper, brushes, antiques, calligraphy, paintings, and other accoutrements of the scholarly life.99 The following quotation about Liulichang book shopping makes clear that the clerks in these places, too, were deeply imbued with literati values: When people had free time they went to bookstores. . . . The exteriors were simple but inside the narrow aisles wound among the towering bookcases that filled the handful of brightly-lit rooms. There were bamboo curtains, stoves with incense and fragrant bowls of tea throughout. If you were sleepy, you could rest on the heated kang, have a smoke and a chat, relaxing without limit. The bookshop clerks always had a peaceful and happy


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look, and . . . never treated their customers rudely. If you purchased their books that was fine, if you didn’t that was fine too. . . . They were merchants who had the character of high-minded men, and imperceptibly nurtured those who loved books and Beijing’s academic atmosphere.100

Liulichang book merchants were wedded to the idea that, like their clients, they too were scholars and gentleman, more concerned with culture and history than with profits. At Liulichang, book buyers were allowed to run up considerable debts, which they then paid off by year’s end, and it was not uncommon for bookstore owners to pay house calls to their loyal customers, leaving the books that were of interest and taking the rest back to the store. In addition, intellectuals loved the bookshops clustered at Longfusi in the Inner City and at the Dong’an and Xidan markets. They also frequented open-air sales (shutan), where merchants spread used books on the ground for their customers’ perusal. Shopping at the open-air markets was a sport of sorts, since prices were usually lower and it was sometimes possible to come across hidden treasures on sale at bargain rates.101 Essays from the Republican period overwhelmingly communicate the idea that, as compared to Shanghai—where, as Yeh has argued, the mechanical clock symbolized the emergence of a new corporate order—Beijing was a precapitalist city wherein time was not yet viewed as money.102 The conceit and often the reality as well was that in Beijing, as compared to Shanghai, people moved slowly and knew how to relax. In Rickshaw Beijing, David Strand vividly captures the city’s transitional nature in the 1920s, stating that Beijing’s “physical ambiguities,” its streetcar system, modern factories, and cinemas on the one hand, and its “walls, walled enclosures, and gates,” on the other, provide “a metaphor for the uneven and incomplete social transformations of the Republican period.” And as Strand observes, Beijing intellectuals were fascinated by the city as a metaphor of old-giving-way-to-new as well.103 After 1911 Beijing underwent a process of rapid, though uneven, modernization, which worked to reduce its uniqueness relative to other Chinese cities, but the abundant attention intellectuals paid in their writings to the markers of the imperial past—walls, temples, palaces, and gardens—suggests that they were deeply moved by the city’s historicity. Lin Yutang, who taught at Beida in the 1920s, had a particularly romantic attachment to Beijing, later writing that it was a “city of gems,” full of palaces, pavilions, lakes, parks, and homes with shaded courtyards wherein fruit trees grew and

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goldfish swam in their bowls. Lin’s statement that the city had the feel of “an emperor’s dream” calls attention to the fact that those who lived in the Republican period were indeed enjoying a city built for an emperor, one suffused with the afterglow of the imperial past and only recently opened to the general public.104 By emphasizing the privileges intellectuals enjoyed and the yawning social gulf that separated them from commoners, I do not intend to suggest that university professors lived entirely carefree lives, and the discussion in this chapter should make it clear that many of them were deeply pained by the social misery that surrounded them. Moreover, as I will show, in the 1920s intellectuals’ livelihoods were threatened by warlord governments that withheld funding for the university for months at a time. Faculty members whose monthly salaries were delayed and sometimes reduced never were in danger of dropping into serious penury, of course, but the warlord governments’ refusal to pay them on time created financial unpredictability and undercut their confidence in their honored position within society. Under such circumstances, increasing numbers of Beijing scholars drew upon their connections to the burgeoning Shanghai cultural scene, thereby undercutting still further the injunction against production for the literary marketplace. In the process, intellectuals also carved out a more independent space for themselves vis-à-vis governmental authority, thereby helping to forge a new kind of relationship between themselves and the state.

chapter 7

National University under Siege

The May Fourth Movement left Beijing University with two overlapping legacies as it headed into the 1920s, one intellectual and cultural, the other political. The fundamental importance to politics of the cultural realm and the political nature of cultural issues had become abundantly clear during those heady days. But the blending of politics and culture raised the possibility that in time the former might overwhelm the latter. If this happened, the university could well be prevented from developing into a space where ideas could be pursued in a calm, deliberative fashion, removed from the glare of the media and the manipulation of partisan interests. Within a year of May Fourth, many who had taken part in the excitement were beginning to experience “movement fatigue,” the feeling that agitation was becoming increasingly important for its own sake, rather than for a higher goal. Those in favor of maintaining Beida’s activist role increasingly came to believe that the raw energy of the May Fourth period needed to be steered to a more specific political purpose. Those who worried that Beida was in danger of being overrun by politics also yearned for greater maturity, but for them this tended to mean studiousness and academic professionalization. The unstable political situation in Beijing, and China more broadly, in the mid- and late 1920s gave the advantage in this debate to those who desired to keep the National University involved in politics. When a warlord regime appeared to be hopelessly corrupt, political engagement in the form of protest was a course that committed activists found it natu215

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ral, and useful, to follow. Try as many did to keep the National University focused on academics, then, politics would not leave the highest school alone; indeed, those who wished to harness the potent symbolic capital of the university in the 1920s became increasingly dependent on adversity, which became their fuel, their energy. As Beijing’s prominence in national politics waned over the course of the 1920s, Beida continued to shine from within the darkness, suggesting to those in Guangzhou and Shanghai—now clearly China’s two most dynamic cities—that progressive forces still controlled at least one strategic position in the North. But the university’s key role during the revolutionary movement of the mid-1920s proved to be a double-edged sword. Beida’s prominence attracted political opportunists in search of a larger audience. As a result, the university became increasingly prone to factional infighting among competitors seeking to control what it stood for on the national scene. As warlord regimes in the capital became more willing to use violence to enforce their will, the university’s high profile became a liability. By the late 1920s, the darkness that had descended on Beijing engulfed the National University as well. Cities to the south, especially Shanghai, benefited from the brain drain that followed.

striving for professional autonomy At the time of the May Fourth Movement the Beiyang government spent 42 percent of its annual budget on military expenses and just 1 percent on education. The annual allotment to Beijing University was just over 800,000 Chinese dollars. Despite the small amount of money it committed to higher education, in early 1920, facing fiscal difficulty, the Duan Qirui government fell behind in its payments to Beida and to other government-supported institutions of higher learning in the capital, thereby precipitating a movement to render the universities financially independent of the central government.1 In that instance, the government paid the money that it owed before the “autonomous education” (jiaoyu duli) movement gathered much momentum. However, after forcing the Anfu Clique out of power in the summer of 1920, the Zhili Clique picked up where its predecessor left off, failing to remit funds for higher education. At Beida, plans to improve the university’s physical plant—including the construction of a swimming pool and ice-skating rink—fell by the wayside. In fall 1920, Cai Yuanpei was forced to petition the Ministry of Education to remit the over three months’ worth of money the government owed to the university.2 As had the Duan government earlier in


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the year, the new government made good on its obligations, only to fall behind again a short time later. By mid-March 1921, not having received any pay for over three months, faculty from Beida and other government-supported schools in the capital elected representatives to negotiate with the government on their behalf. Beida philosophy professor Ma Xulun emerged as the most visible leader. On March 13, 1921, the united faculty announced its intention to go on strike until all salaries were paid in full, and on March 14, Beida came to a standstill. Normal activities also ground to a halt at Beijing Teachers’ College, Beijing Women’s Teachers’ College, the Law and Politics College, and the Colleges of Industry, Medicine, Agriculture, and Art.3 To pressure the government, students launched the “right to study movement” (dushu yundong), declaring that “losing Shandong would be like losing our hands and feet, whereas the destruction of education would be akin to lopping off our brain. It’s possible to live without hands and feet, but not without a brain.”4 A few weeks later the Beijing united faculty proclaimed that “scholars can be killed but not insulted” (shi ke sha, bu ke ru) and that if the government did not allow the faculty to declare independence, it would, as a body, move South.5 As discussed, some scholars and educational leaders had broached the subject of moving Beida to Shanghai or Nanjing during the crackdown on the university that followed the May Fourth demonstrations. The suggestion that Beida should be transplanted to Shanghai was largely an attempt to embarrass the Beijing government into finally making funds available for higher education and reveals that the cultural and political worlds of China’s two most important cities could be played off one another for political advantage. But the Beijing government was not embarrassed into making good on its debt to higher education until the situation became even more explosive. On June 3, 1921, hundreds of students and professors marched to the presidential palace to seek a meeting with President Xu Shichang. An imposing battalion of armed military police was waiting for them and proceeded to beat the leaders of the protest march with rifle butts, some seriously enough to require hospitalization. While the brutal beatings were highly costly to the individuals who incurred them, they provided the academic community with a valuable public relations weapon. The united faculty cabled newspapers and student groups across the country to spread the news. As word of the beatings and resignations traveled, angry denunciations of the Beijing government followed. Sun Yatsen issued a caustic attack on the government from his base in Guangzhou,

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and sympathetic newspapers reported the events in lurid detail. In some cases, the reports were accompanied by photographs of Professor Ma Xulun—who was beaten so savagely that he required several months to recover—and others lying in their hospital beds bloodied and bandaged.6 While it might be argued that students pointed the way to the violent split between the state and intellectuals when they employed force against the government during the May Fourth demonstration of 1919, the beatings in June 1921 were clearly on a different order of magnitude. In 1919, a handful of angry, patriotic students had employed “righteous force” against government ministers whom they believed had betrayed the interests of the Chinese people. In 1921, albeit with nonlethal force, armed soldiers mercilessly attacked defenseless professors and students while they were exercising what should have been their legal right to petition the government. The battle for public opinion was no contest. Only a few days after the beatings, as anger and indignation mounted, the government entered into serious negotiations with faculty leaders to finally resolve the dispute over funding. But the negotiations moved slowly. Classes at Beida did not actually resume until mid-October, some seven months after they had been put on hold. By that time, Cai Yuanpei had returned from his foreign travels and had made clear that he did not approve of the faculty’s approach to the budget crisis that had blown up in his absence. To be sure, Cai believed the warlord government had behaved reprehensibly, and pledged to work on behalf of increased financial independence for educational institutions, but he also viewed it as a tragedy that Beida’s professors had sacrificed months’ worth of research work as well as the needs of the students to wage a political fight. Just as Confucius and Mencius had not let anything divert them from their purpose, Cai argued, so modern educators needed to allow nothing to interfere with their work. Strikes by professors were an extreme measure that he hoped would not be resorted to again.7 Though the faculty had demonstrated solidarity during the wage strike, many of its members fully backed Cai Yuanpei’s statement of priorities. The most visible of these individuals had received their graduate degrees in the United States, many of them at Columbia University.8 In the early and mid-1920s Chinese scholars paid increasing attention to the role academicians played in the United States and Europe. At Beida, the focus on professionalization became more pronounced, as can be seen in the invitations to lecture or teach extended to numerous foreign scholars. In addition to John Dewey, distinguished foreigners who visited


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or spent time in residence at Beida in the early 1920s included British philosopher Bertrand Russell; German philosopher Hans Driesch; Walter Williams, the Dean of the Journalism School at the University of Missouri; Swedish art historian Osvald Sirén; Indian philosopher and poet Rabindranath Tagore; Margaret Sanger, the American advocate of family planning; and Columbia University Education Professor Paul Monroe—who delivered a lecture entitled “The Function of the University.”9 Also in the early and mid-1920s Beida began to develop a critical mass of foreign-trained, research-oriented scholars in the social and natural sciences to complement its already strong humanities faculty. In a few years’ time the university hired several European-trained scholars. Among these were Ding Xilin and Li Shuhua, both physicists; Li Linyu, a chemist; Zhu Jiahua and Li Siguang, both geologists; and Zhou Gengsheng, a scholar of law who had been working as an editor for the Commercial Press. Such individuals served as the backbone for the university’s revamped graduate programs, which Cai Yuanpei launched in the winter of 1921.10 What they needed in order to do their work were international connections, access to foreign books and journals, and above all, political stability. The six-month closure of Beida during the faculty wage strike led many of the university’s leaders to articulate a need to prioritize academics over politics. A commemorative volume entitled Beida Life (Beida shenghuo), published in December 1921 in honor of the twentythird anniversary of Beida’s founding, captures the values competing for dominance at the university at this time. There is a clear attempt on the part of the faculty contributors to focus on humility and academics. For example, philosophy professor Tan Xihong—formerly Sun Yatsen’s and in 1921 Cai Yuanpei’s personal secretary—wrote that since people thought of Beida as the highest school and as the cradle of the New Culture Movement they naturally assumed that its academics were already fully developed. Tan hoped that this would one day be true, but he also stated that it was important to be honest about just how underdeveloped the university’s facilities and academic culture remained.11 Beida Life stressed the centrality of the university’s academic life in other ways as well. The university’s course offerings and degree programs were discussed at some length, as were the library’s holdings. An extensive section of photographs included shots of the library, the university publishing facilities, its laboratories, and photos of famous foreign intellectuals on Beida’s grounds—Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and others. There were also group photographs of the members of various

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student extracurricular academic societies, such as the New Tide Society, the Painting Society, the Drama Society, and the Music Society. For all that the commemorative volume stressed the importance of the university’s academic mission, however, it also reinforced the important role that political movements had played in defining the university’s identity since the May Fourth Movement. This can be seen in the closing essay, “Hopes for Beida,” which, though it stressed that Beida must focus on academics, nevertheless made clear that, as a special institution with a unique responsibility to the Chinese people, the university could and must stand up to whatever political and cultural challenges were put in its way. This essay, and a poem at the start of the volume entitled “Cultural Bell” by the student activist Huang Rikui, express a definite sense of heroic mission. In combination with ten pages of photographs depicting scenes from recent protest movements, they create a theme of political activism to accompany the volume’s emphasis on academics. The photographs included shots of students marching in the streets, massed to listen to exhortatory lectures and speaking to commoners; of police and soldiers occupying and barring entry to campus; and of Professors Ma Xulun and Shen Jianshi in their hospital beds following the beatings of June 1921.

a final moment of hope In January 1922 Beida appeared to have its best opportunity in several years to begin to develop into the world-class university that Cai Yuanpei and his associates envisioned. Its leaders had come together in support of professionalism and calm, the library was improving rapidly, the graduate school was soon to be up and running, and the budget conflict was over.12 Furthermore, war between the Zhili and Fengtian cliques— which had together unseated Duan Qirui’s Anfu Clique in summer 1920—brought renewed hope that a healthy political environment might yet be in the offing. As Andrew Nathan has written, that war “had a cleansing effect on the political atmosphere and seemed to offer a final opportunity to make the republic work.”13 The victorious Zhili Clique promised to restore the Provincial Constitution and recall the 1917 parliament, and appeared to be serious about making peace with Sun Yatsen’s government. Heartened by these developments, leading liberal intellectuals set about to help return the country to the path of constitutional govern-


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ment. One of these people was Hu Shi, who in early May 1922 joined with Ding Wenjiang, Gao Yihan, and Tao Menghe to found Endeavor Weekly (Nuli zhoubao), which was published by the Commercial Press. In the first issue of the new journal, Hu Shi asserted that people with determination and good will had to stand up against political rot and militarism because no one else would do so. He exhorted such people to sing the “Song of Hard Work” (Nuli ge): “Don’t fear obstacles! Don’t fear militarism! Fear only lack of hard work! Reduce the obstacles! Overthrow militarism! Create a new China! Work hard! Work hard!”14 There was in all this the sense of a movement revitalized, a feeling that became firmer still with the publication of the famous reform document, “Our Political Proposals,” in the second issue of Endeavor Weekly. “Our Political Proposals” called for supervisory organs to monitor officials for corrupt behavior, for a government that protected individual freedoms and worked to improve the general welfare of society, for a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the North and the South, and for a policy of warlord disarmament.15 When it was published, it bore the signatures of sixteen individuals, eleven of whom were full- or part-time members of the Beida faculty—Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Li Dazhao, Wang Chonghui, Luo Wengan, Liang Shuming, Tao Menghe, Zhu Jingnong, Zhang Weici, Gao Yihan, and Xu Baohuang. In September 1922 three signatories of “Our Political Proposals” were invited to join the government. Wang Chonghui, a respected lawyer, diplomat, and educator who had a law degree from Yale University and had also received legal training in Berlin, was named Prime Minister; Luo Wengan, an Oxford-trained lawyer who, like Wang Chonghui, taught classes at Beida, was named Minister of Finance; and Tang Erhe, a physician trained in Japan and the former chancellor of the Beijing Medical College, was appointed Minister of Education. Because of the inclusion of these men, the cabinet in which they served was dubbed the “good men Cabinet.” By agreeing to join the government, Wang, Luo, and Tang demonstrated that the boundary between academic work and government service remained porous. On National Day a huge demonstration at Tiananmen Square in favor of disarmament gave reason for further hope that new values would prevail in Beijing. Thousands of people from all walks of life massed to call for an end to military spending that led to bloody civil wars and diverted badly needed revenue away from peaceful human and social needs. A further sign of determination—and of the steady militarization of political life—can be

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seen in the founding at Beida of a Student Military Corps (Xuesheng jun), which immediately enrolled some two hundred young idealists who dreamed of becoming physically fit pillars of the new nation.16 But this hopeful moment proved utterly fleeting. The unraveling of the “good men Cabinet” began almost immediately, when Luo Wengan was framed and held in jail on trumped-up charges of treasonous corruption. Predictably, the utterly unbelievable charges against Luo led to a stream of protests and appeals from the Beijing intellectual community. By late November 1922 the “good men Cabinet” had resigned en masse.17 Angered by student opposition to his plan to raise revenue by charging a small fee for lecture notes, and with Luo Wengan languishing in prison thanks in great part to the political chicanery of Peng Yunyi—who had been named acting Minister of Education in the wake of Tang Erhe’s resignation—Cai Yuanpei could tolerate no more. On January 19, 1923, he issued yet another a letter of resignation.18 In explaining why, Cai invoked a quotation from the Book of Changes: “ ‘The small man knows how to advance but not how to retreat.’ In recent years our country has struggled through many difficulties all owing to small men who do not know how or when to retreat. But retreating need not be seen as a negative action designed to avoid difficulties, it can be a means of positive struggle.” Since he had assumed the post of university chancellor, Cai wrote, he could not count the number of people he had met whom he did not want to meet, how many times he had given talks that he did not want to give, how many letters he had read that he had no interest in reading. “It has been impossible for me to find even one or two hours for study per day,” Cai said. “This is insufferable.”19 To all intents and purposes, Cai’s resignation marked the end of his career at Beijing University. Though he later returned as titular chancellor and served in that capacity until summer 1927—with Jiang Menglin serving as acting chancellor—Cai spent most of the mid1920s in Europe and did not play a significant role at Beida. He recognized this. “I was officially the chancellor of Beijing University for ten and a half years, but in fact I was only there for five and a half years. When I think back on it, I am very ashamed.”20 Cai had set out to develop Beida into a great institution of higher learning on a par with the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe. Certainly, it was nothing of the sort by the time he finally severed his ties with it in 1927.


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the new revolutionary tide Cai Yuanpei’s resignation provoked a storm of outrage throughout Beijing’s academic community that fed into a growing tide of radicalism across the country. His decision to resign in accord with the so-called “principle of non-cooperation” (bu hezuo zhuyi)—a term coined by journalists to characterize Cai’s stance—created a genuine sense of loss as well as a mobilizing issue par excellence. By this time, Cai had the emotional hold over Beida’s faculty and student body of a mother. “Our everadored ‘loving mother’ [cimu] has departed, how incalculably painful for us!” stated one Beida student publication. “The warlord’s running dog Peng Yunyi has forced our ‘loving mother’ to leave and so inspires our unbounded hatred!”21 The Beijing University Students’ Association vowed to wage a campaign to drive acting Minister of Education Peng Yunyi from office and to bring Cai back. So, too, did the Beida faculty council and the heads of the eight government schools in the capital. On January 19, 1923, students from the government schools, massed outside Parliament to demand that Peng Yunyi not be elevated from acting to full-time Minister of Education, were severely beaten by military police sent by Wu Jinglian, the House Speaker. Making matters worse, Peng Yunyi won approval in the House of Representatives that day. Coverage of the violence varied greatly. The progressive Beijing press, led by Shao Piaoping’s Peking Press, was highly critical of the government. The Peking Leader, an English-language newspaper run by a British citizen who taught English-language courses at Beida, also came out on the side of the students. “Students had held banners in support of Tsai and against Peng as automobiles, carriages and rickshaws drew up to the House of Representatives bearing members of Parliament. . . . Soon there were almost as many police as students. . . . At least five individual cases occurred when a lone student was surrounded by 10 or 12 police and beaten by leather belts for a distance of a score yards, more or less.” On the other hand, newspapers controlled by forces loyal to the government reported that the students had provoked the beatings through their own unruly behavior, and that Cai Yuanpei had instigated their violence. Disgusted by this sort of coverage, students held a press conference to explain their views to newspaper reporters.22 By early February, statements of solidarity were beginning to trickle in from places like Kaifeng, Taiyuan, and a variety of locations in Jiangnan. For instance, the Student Union of Zhejiang sent a telegram to the

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relevant government offices in the capital supporting the Beijing students, as did students from Southeastern University in Nanjing, which was rising as China’s other leading national university at this time. In addition, news reports indicated that intellectuals such as Zheng Zhenduo, Gu Jiegang, and Ye Shengtao, all of whom by this time had left Beijing and were working in Shanghai for the Commercial Press, were once again raising the prospect of moving Beida to a location in the South, as a means both of protecting it from further political interference and of signaling a collective statement of noncooperation with the Beijing government.23 Again, then, China’s intellectual community turned its sights to the South. In this instance, it looked to Shanghai and also to Guangzhou, where Sun Yatsen was in the process of reorganizing the Nationalist Party and forming a United Front with the fledgling Chinese Communist Party. Rather than move the university to the South or issue statements of noncooperation, however, influential voices from within the Beijing academic community encouraged the capital’s students and professors to hold their own in a fight to the finish against the forces of political and cultural reaction. For example, Hu Shi wrote in Endeavor Weekly of the need to respect Cai Yuanpei’s individual decision to leave while at the same time resolving not to follow his example. Revealing the extent to which views about student activism had shifted, Hu observed that today’s students were comparable to those at the Imperial College during the Eastern Han and Song dynasties and to the Donglin and Fushe partisans at the end of the Ming, all of whom bravely stood up for the country on critical occasions when their elders did not dare to open their mouths. It was past time for the faculty to get involved and to lead the fight against China’s corrupt politicians and warlords, Hu said, though he pleaded with them to refrain from boycotting their classes and thereby forcing the students to sacrifice their studies.24 Far more strident demands came from the socialist and, increasingly, the communist left. China’s first openly communist periodical and the official organ of the Communist Party, The Guide (Xiangdao)—which was published by the same Shanghai-based East Asia Book Company that published The Tiger and New Youth—led the way in calling on intellectuals to wage a more aggressive political movement against the warlords.25 A week after Cai Yuanpei’s resignation, Chen Duxiu published an analysis of the chancellor’s strategy in The Guide in which he called for the overthrow of the Beijing government. Chen wrote that by resigning Cai demonstrated that he was a man of principle and therefore


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preferable to those in Beijing who served as “cultural ornaments” for the corrupt Beijing government, but that he could not ultimately support Cai’s approach. “Societal leaders must struggle actively, fiercely, because passive tactics will not topple the government,” he wrote, “and because passive tactics will lead the masses to be passive and retreat. Asian peoples are so weak because they are so passive. Now the Beijing Morning Post calls Chancellor Cai China’s Gandhi and says that his strategy of non-cooperation is a way to do damage to a government run by evil men. What a terrible misfortune this is for China’s intellectuals!” Chen was most upset that Cai seemed to think that China’s fate rested in the hands of scholars and officials alone. A revolution can succeed, he concluded, only when based on the energy and strength of the masses.26 Chen Duxiu continued his offensive in the journal’s next issue: “On the one hand we are constantly shouting that warlords and bureaucrats have a strangle hold on politics and are destroying the country, while on the other we repeat that we should not interfere in politics. This is utterly contradictory!” Chen asserted that the pathetic state of Chinese society could be blamed not on warlords and bureaucrats but instead on the passive attitude of scholars, farmers, workers, and businessmen, all of whom had neglected their responsibility by supporting the absurd idea that it is best to avoid politics altogether. Chen was most impatient with intellectuals’ apparent allergy to politics, their sense that politics was rotten filth with which people of their social standing should not dirty themselves. How was it possible, he asked, for intellectuals to espouse independence for higher education and for the judiciary and to seek to drive Minister of Education Peng Yunyi from office while still maintaining that they would not get involved in politics? “Aristotle said it well: ‘man is a political animal.’ ” “Unless you are not a person,” Chen snapped, “it is impossible not to be political! The statement ‘do not get involved in politics’ has the ring of a country on the brink of collapse, it is an expression of the Chinese people’s willingness to permit their humanity to go unrealized!”27 Beida’s student activists moved rapidly to merge the movement against Peng Yunyi with extra-university political and social struggles. By early 1923 the university had already become home to a wellorganized communist student group. In the months following the secretive founding of the Beijing University Marxism Study Society in March 1920, Li Dazhao also established branches of the Communist Small Group and of the Socialist Youth Corps at Beida. The Youth Corps soon became an important organization on campus. Though still small in

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terms of its membership, by November 1921 the Communist movement had grown sufficiently prominent for Li Dazhao to announce publicly in the Beijing University Daily that a Marxism Study Society was being founded at Beida—in fact, it had already existed for over a year.28 By this time, the systematic exclusion of leftists who did not subscribe to Marxist ideology was well under way. As Dirlik has written, by 1921 it was possible to speak of the “emergence of an organizational and ideological identity that clearly demarcated the boundary between Communist and non-Communist, and brooked no eclecticism or pluralism.” In January 1922 the Beijing branch of the Socialist Youth Corps began to publish the journal Xianqu (Pioneers) in order to clarify doctrinal positions and attract new members. After the fourth issue was published, the warlord authorities forced Pioneers to close down and move its base of operations to Shanghai, but the crackdown did not diminish the Socialist Youth Corps’ presence at the National University.29 On the contrary, in 1922 and 1923 Marxists gained increased control over key student groups like the Beijing University Commoners’ Education Lecture Society and the Beijing University Students’ Association.30 Indeed, because Beida was the most important Communist organizational center in North China, Li Dazhao was determined not to let Cai Yuanpei’s resignation lead to the destruction of university. In the wake of Cai’s departure, as the struggle against Peng Yunyi was gaining momentum, Li declared firmly at a faculty meeting that “the university is a place we cannot let go of, we absolutely must hold the university (fei zhanju daxue buke).”31 Undoubtedly, Li Dazhao was pleased that the anti–Peng Yunyi cause had transformed into a revolutionary mass movement under the guidance of his disciples from the Marxist Study Society. Bountiful evidence of that transformation can be found in the pages of the Beida Student News (Beida xuesheng xinwen), a new gazette that emerged as the primary organ of the revived Beijing student movement in the winter and spring of 1923. Beida Student News—its name was changed to Beijing Student Union Daily (Beijing xuesheng lianhehui rikan) a few weeks after it began publication—was not a Communist newspaper, but it was edited by students who were inclined toward revolution, many of them Communists. As did The Guide, for the most part Beida Student News rejected Cai Yuanpei’s strategy of noncooperation. “Mr. Cai is not a superman. Because he wants to preserve his own integrity he refuses to work with the corrupt officials within the Ministry of Education. We must not follow Mr. Cai’s example. In order to preserve our integrity we must fight with determi-


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nation against that corrupt, petty politician, Peng Yunyi!” The rhetoric became even sharper a few days later. After pointing out the limitations of Cai’s Gandhi-style approach, an article entitled “Non-cooperation and Revolution” ended by declaring: “It is necessary that people who are willing to take ‘direct action’ support the masses. The blood bell has tolled! Red blooded youths, exert yourselves!” In the lead article on January 31, 1923, Deng Zhongxia exhorted Beida’s students to stop worrying over trifling issues such as how to bring Cai Yuanpei back and how to drive Peng Yunyi from office and instead to concentrate on the fundamental problem of how to overthrow the reactionary warlord government. Deng forcefully argued that students needed to unite with the broad mass of laborers to fight against the government, and that anything else was piecemeal, romantic, and ultimately suicidal.32 In February, railroad workers in Changxindian (on the outskirts of Beijing)—among whom Deng Zhongxia and other Beijing University Communist activists lived and worked—went on strike to declare their right to form a labor union. On February 7, as they marched, troops loyal to Wu Peifu opened fire. Similar bloody assaults against striking railroad workers were carried out on the same day in other cities along the Jinghan railroad line that connected the capital to Hankou, resulting in scores of serious injuries and over forty deaths. The Beijing Student Union Daily listed the names of the workers who were killed on February 7, the circumstances of their deaths, and the number of family members surviving them; it provided the same information about all who suffered serious injuries.33 Following the “February 7 Massacre” students in the capital became more receptive to the radical revolutionary messages being espoused by their classmates and by the newly reorganized and aggressive Nationalist Party. For several months the Beijing Student Union Daily was filled with articles about the massacre and about the need for students to unite with workers. A February 14 article entitled “Why China Must Have Revolution” captured the new sense of urgency: If the warlords are not overthrown, the legislature is not dissolved, and the government is not deposed, politics will never be clean and our citizens will never know success! Merchants, Workers, Educators! All must exert themselves in struggle, to pave a new path with blood, to swiftly banish the pack of wolves and establish a good government and open a fresh era! I have boundless hope for that outcome!34

The Beida-led Beijing Student Union worked hard to persuade ordinary Beijing citizens to support them in their struggle: “We students have risen

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up to awaken the masses of our countrymen to attack those who are robbing us. We say clearly that we are not struggling just for ourselves, but for every person in the country! Citizens of Beijing! You have suffered enough and have been repressed for too long! Join with us so that we can work together to destroy the enemy.” Students also sought to form alliances with groups across the country, and in early March sent representatives to Shanghai to take part in the formation of a new China-wide Student Union. The majority of students who attended that conference were attracted to or were already members of the Nationalist or Communist parties, and virtually all were committed to a revolutionary political agenda. Such people generally accepted that previous student movements had failed because students had not linked up with people from other classes, and because they had focused on reform rather than revolution.35 Fired with new energy, during spring and summer of 1923 students in Beijing organized a series of demonstrations against the warlords and their imperialist backers. At their peak, these demonstrations involved thousands of people from all sectors of society. Nevertheless, the revolutionary forces were no match for a warlord government willing to use any means to enforce its will. In September, the same month Minister of Education Peng Yunyi finally resigned from office, Jiang Menglin delivered an opening address for the new academic year. Clarifying just how dire the situation had become under Peng’s tenure, Jiang informed his audience that Beida had not received money from the government for eight months and that the university would have to make do with only the barest necessities. But make do, he insisted, it would: “Under the present circumstances, it will be possible to preserve education in the capital only if we rely on our common willingness to struggle. At the very least we must preserve Beida’s life, we absolutely cannot let it be cut off.”36

forging the “beida spirit” When they took place, the events discussed above received so much coverage that Beida’s primary mission appeared to center on political struggle rather than higher education. Yet ordinary university life did go on, and even activist students and faculty members continued to stress the paramount importance of academics. In December 1922, for example, Li Dazhao wrote: “The only thing a university should celebrate is academic development, the only reason to shout ‘Long live Beida!’ is to encourage scholarly contribution.”37 Throughout spring 1923 the Beijing


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University Daily continued to publish lengthy academic articles and to announce the usual rich array of scholarly lectures. Amidst the political tumult, the university’s conservatory of music continued with its activities as well, holding a concert on March 10. The sloganeering in the streets and the sharp political rhetoric that filled the newspapers and journals of the day did not drown out the sweet sounds of Schubert, Beethoven, and Chopin.38 However, in October 1923, when Cao Kun succeeded in buying himself the presidency of the Beijing government and in the process dragged liberal politics to its lowest point, ordinary university life itself became, indirectly, the stuff of resistance, a means of asserting that the dream of a better China could not be snuffed out altogether. Events such as classical music performances were no doubt experienced as joyous occasions in their own right, but by virtue of the context in which they took place they also acquired a political valence, for they symbolized the university’s determined effort to keep to the course of higher cultural attainment despite the ever-deteriorating political atmosphere. As Jiang Menglin indicated at the start of classes in fall 1923, Beida’s very survival had become the issue. If the university collapsed, the reactionaries’ victory in the North would be total. In order to prevent that and to keep Beida afloat, Jiang was forced to slash the university’s expenditures to the bone.39 Cut to the bare minimum though it was, the celebration in honor of Beida’s twenty-fifth anniversary in December 1923 proved to be a stirring one. More clearly than ever before, those who spoke out at the anniversary or wrote commemorative essays in its honor associated the university with a spirit of struggle in the face of adversity. What stands out most clearly in the commemorative remarks of December 1923 is the process by which Beida’s core meaning had come to center on its role as a lone soldier valiantly fighting on against great odds. Supreme challenges, it was asserted, had strengthened Beida and clarified the importance of the university to the Chinese people as a whole. In other words, a direct relationship had come to exist between Beida’s potency as a symbol that could move people and the degree to which the university suffered from government neglect or, worse, outright abuse. Thereafter, Beida was consistently tied to the idea that, no matter how corrupt and hopeless politics and society had become, the university would always be out front leading the way forward. Essays from the twenty-fifth anniversary reveal how the concept of a unique “Beida spirit” or “Beida jingshen” began to take root at this time. Opening the volume, Jiang Menglin argued that the National Univer-

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sity’s ability to withstand recent political and economic challenges was evidence of the “Beida spirit.” This spirit derived from the emphasis on intellectual inclusiveness and freedom of thought brought to the university by Cai Yuanpei. These values were not only appropriate for a university, Jiang wrote, but also the key to Beida’s resiliency; they united people who disagreed with one another about many things whenever the institution as a whole was threatened from without. The university’s spirit of open intellectual inquiry made it a home for all, not just for some, and this led them to close ranks against any power that would undermine Beida’s institutional integrity.40 Other essays invoked similar ideas. Luo Dunwei, a prominent student activist, claimed that Beida’s mission (shiming) was to strive against competitive, class-bound and racist ideas in order to create a genuinely humane society. Just as the corrupt and backward political situation in eighteenth-century France had led to dissatisfaction that brought about an intellectual revolution and then the great revolution of 1789, so the bleak situation in present-day China had led to the emergence of intellectual leaders who were pointing the way to a brighter future. In Luo’s opinion, Beida’s ongoing mission was not only to train specialists but also to nurture national leaders motivated by noble and high-minded ideals and by a spirit of determination and bravery.41 Zhu Wushan, another student leader, wrote that it was precisely in adversity that Beida’s unique spirit shone the brightest, and the student Yu Weiyi drew clear connections between Beida’s role as intellectual pioneer and its role as political leader. Yu proclaimed that the ceremony would be a worthless indulgence unless it focused on the need for a broad-based movement to protect the university from the government’s abuse. In other words, the anniversary celebration should be the first phase of a new political movement about the protection of Beida itself. Yu explained that as the “highest school” in the country Beida had influenced every Chinese person, and that society thus had a duty to protest the warlord government’s systematic undercutting of the university. If the government was China’s brain, said Yu, then Beida was the country’s nerve system; if the nerve system failed to function properly, so too would the brain.42 Huang Rikui, a Communist student activist, wrote that universities in every country had a responsibility to develop culture and thought, but that their responsibility in backward countries was particularly great. Beida, he said, had been born in a terrible age—like an orphan child from a poor family, it was fated to struggle. Huang compared Beida’s mission to that of Moscow University in the nineteenth century, calling Moscow


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University an “epoch-maker,” the place where Russia’s new thought got its start, the key institution that paved the way for the acceptance of Marxism and thus for the 1917 Revolution. Beida could not be content with what it had already accomplished; it had to fight on, to lead the Chinese people to their own revolution.43 Huang Rikui’s insistence that Beida could not rest on its laurels was another key theme emphasized in the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Volume. Unlike students at other schools who know only how to praise themselves, wrote Guan Weihua, Beida students were not afraid to shine light on their weak points in order to improve them.44 In just such a spirit of criticism, Ding Wen’an encouraged students to spend more time pursuing healthy activities; if they continued to spend time gambling or visiting prostitutes, their studies would suffer and they would damage both their bodies and their minds. Along with schoolmate Su Jiarong, Ding wrote about the frequency with which students who lived in apartments off campus fell into bad habits that distracted them from their studies and brought the university into disrepute. Su Jiarong also complained that Beida had a reputation for being difficult to enter but extremely easy to graduate from. This, he said, was due to the fact that only a minority of the students knew how to motivate themselves.45

internal divisions during the first united front When Sun Yatsen convened the First National Congress of the reorganized Guomindang in Guangzhou in January 1924, he solidified the new alliance between the fledgling Communist Party and his own, thereby successfully kicking the national revolutionary movement into higher gear. At the congress, Sun observed that Cai Yuanpei’s leadership of Beida had greatly benefited progressive forces in Beijing and hoped out loud that Cai would consent to return from Europe in order to resume his post at Beida.46 That did not come to pass, but Sun’s remarks strongly suggest that he still regarded Beida as a potential northern base of operations and a recruiting ground that could complement the role to be played by the soon-to-opened Whampoa Military Academy. This point is also borne out by Sun’s highly solicitous treatment of groups of Beida students who visited him in Shanghai and Guangzhou in the early 1920s.47 The timing of the First National Congress coincided with Lenin’s death, an event that was greeted with great sadness by the conferees in Guangzhou. Li Dazhao, who was one of three Beida professors whom

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Sun Yatsen invited to be delegates to the Congress (Sun had great respect for Li and appointed him to the five-person chair committee), was not in Beijing for the impressive memorial service for Lenin held at the National University.48 However, student groups with which he was closely associated organized that event, which was attended by over one thousand people. Such numbers indicate that the Communist Party infrastructure that Li had worked so tirelessly to establish at Beida was coming into its own just as the United Front was coming to life. For this reason, and because Li played a critically important role in cementing the alliance between the two revolutionary parties, Beida became the principal center of the national revolutionary movement in North China. Before this time, the Guomindang had lacked strength in the North, but by early 1924 it had become highly popular with students there. The Shanghai minguo ribao (Shanghai Republican Daily), a Guomindang newspaper, was widely read among Beijing’s students at this time. Also, when polled as to which public figure they most admired, 473 of Beida’s students selected Sun Yatsen; the next two leading choices were Chen Duxiu and Cai Yuanpei, who earned 173 and 153 votes, respectively.49 The entry into the Guomindang of students from the Socialist Youth Corps assured that the revolutionary movement in the capital would be guided from the left. This became readily apparent in the weeks following the Guomindang National Congress when left-leaning intellectuals began to agitate on behalf of the resumption of diplomatic relations between China and the revolutionary government in Moscow. By March, it was clear that, owing to pressure from the United States, Japan, and other countries, the Beiyang government was hesitant to resume relations with Russia; this precipitated a revived nationwide anti-imperialist, antiwarlord protest movement that was to last for several months.50 On May 1, 1924, several hundred students and professors involved in the United Front revolutionary movement held a rally at the Normal College in Beijing to commemorate International Labor Day. According to a police report, the leaders of the rally were members of the Socialist Youth Corps, many of them current or former Beida students. The students posted banners calling for the overthrow of warlords, imperialists, and capitalists, and invited Li Dazhao, Gao Yihan, and Li Shizeng to speak on the importance of Labor Day to the international proletarian revolutionary movement. The meeting concluded after organizers explained the revolutionary spirit behind the Guomindang’s “three principles of the people.”51 The Labor Day celebration proved to be an unusually open moment.


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At the end of May military police were sent into Beida’s dormitories to begin apprehending Communists.52 An arrest warrant was issued for Li Dazhao, who soon departed under cover for Moscow, where he stayed for six months. For those at Beida involved with the national revolutionary movement, this was the beginning of what were to be several years of heightened tension, and for the university’s administrators, it was a period of constant worry. Wrote Jiang Menglin, “To be the chancellor at that time was extremely troublesome. . . . The students wanted more freedom and the government responded by calling for greater order and strictness. . . . If there was a demonstration or a violent confrontation everybody immediately sought out the chancellor. . . . [This] caused the hair on [my] temples to turn white very rapidly.”53 In late October 1924 there was a temporary easing of the tensions after Feng Yuxiang broke with Wu Peifu, allied with Zhang Zuolin, and drove Cao Kun from his position of power in the capital. With Feng Yuxiang’s backing, Duan Qirui became provisional head of the Beijing government. Duan remained unpopular with intellectuals, but there nevertheless was a sense among that population that relatively more moderate forces were now in charge. Was it possible that a nationwide coalition of responsible political leaders might finally be able to achieve a negotiated solution to the conflict that divided the governments of the North and the South? To Sun Yatsen, it appeared that way. Sun called for a national convention (guomin huiyi) to “unify, pacify and rebuild the country” and made plans to travel to Beijing to reunify the country. In his farewell remarks at the Whampoa Military Academy, Sun stated that for twentyfive years “the revolution had been confined to the provinces and that is why it had only a very weak influence. . . . But if it roots itself in the capital, then its influence will be very great.”54 At Beida, the final months of 1924 witnessed a flurry of journalistic activity, as two new periodicals came into being: Thread of Talk (Yusi), whose leading members were Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, Sun Fuyuan, Qian Xuantong, Gu Jiegang, Liu Fu, Yu Dafu, and Lin Yutang; and Contemporary Review (Xiandai pinglun), which, led by Hu Shi, was very much in the mold of Endeavor Weekly. Other intellectuals involved with Contemporary Review included Chen Yuan, Gao Yihan, Xu Zhimo, Wang Shijie, Zhou Gengsheng, Jiang Tingfu, Tao Menghe, and Liang Shiqiu. Thread of Talk tended to consider itself the guardian of the May Fourth iconoclastic spirit, whereas Contemporary Review was more sober in tone and solidly behind a gradualist approach to China’s problems. In general, the Thread of Talk group was disappointed that Beijing had lost

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its literary pride of place following the Literary Association’s move to Shanghai, and that so many of the association’s members had become closely involved with big publishing houses. In the foreword to the first issue the group stated: “We feel a kind of unhappiness and want to say a few things, so we started this small paper to publish freely. . . . We absolutely do not have any doctrine that we want to disseminate, nor do we have any interest in political or economic questions. All that we want to do is break through a little bit the muddled and stagnant atmosphere of life and ideology in China.”55 By contrast, the foreword to the inaugural issue of Contemporary Review emphasized that the journal would promote research and would refrain from inflammatory attacks.56 Thread of Talk was both more radical, culturally, than Contemporary Review and more supportive of the United Front revolutionary movement. By the time Sun Yatsen arrived in Beijing to attempt to secure his election to the presidency of a unified republic, the two journals were openly clashing over politics. Contemporary Review’s defense of the Duan government during its negotiations with Sun Yatsen, and in particular of Hu Shi’s agreement to serve as a delegate to a Duan-organized political conference opposed both by the left wing of the Nationalist Party and by the Communist Party, provoked sharp criticism from Thread of Talk.57 That journal’s authors insisted that intellectuals should remain aloof from direct government service and accused the Contemporary Review group of being “for hire.” Explaining Thread of Talk’s position, Lin Yutang stated: “We all believed that Hu Shi’s group was made up of scholar-official types . . . and that they were well suited to becoming officials. Our belief was that individuals should speak for themselves, that they should never ‘say what other people want them to say.’ ” In his memoir, Beida student Tao Dun recalled: “Thread of Talk leaned in a revolutionary direction and supported the alliance between the Nationalist and Communist parties; Contemporary Review supported the current government and opposed the student movement. The majority of students agreed with Thread of Talk, and some joined the revolutionary path as a result of its influence. There were also students who agreed with Contemporary Review, but many of them were hesitant to express their support publicly.”58 Intellectual and political disagreements had been occurring among friends at Beida for many years by this time, but the acceleration of revolutionary organizing sharpened existing differences. In early March 1925, as Sun Yatsen lay dying, students and faculty members who sided with the right wing of the Nationalist Party attempted to disrupt a meet-


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ing held at Beida by the left wing of the party and communists; during this period leftists also used violence to disrupt gatherings organized by right-wingers.59 That confrontation revealed a growing competition for power and influence among students affiliated with different political parties. In addition to Thread of Talk, beginning in March 1925 leftleaning intellectuals found a voice in Vigorous Progress (Mengjin), a weekly edited by Beida philosophy professor Xu Bingchang. On the other end of the political spectrum, those who opposed the left wing of the Nationalist Party’s emphasis on class analysis found their views represented in the pages of Awakened Lion Weekly (Xingshi zhoubao), a Shanghai-based journal to the right of Contemporary Review that soon spawned offshoots at Beida, such as the student-run National Soul (Guo hun).60 According to Chen Hansheng, a history professor and contributor to Contemporary Review, in the mid-1920s Beijing University’s faculty was also divided into camps based on where people had done their foreign study. Those who had studied in England, the United States, or Germany comprised one bloc, led by Hu Shi, while those who had studied in Japan or France comprised another bloc, led by Li Shizeng, the chair of the Biology Department. Indeed, Chen Hansheng claimed that soon after he had arrived at Beida the chair of the History Department, Zhu Xizu, who had studied in Japan, had tried to remove him because he had done his postgraduate work in the United States and Germany.61 Foreign-study background also loosely overlapped with disciplinary divisions. Whereas those who studied in Japan and France still tended to dominate the humanities division, the law division had more professors who had degrees from England, the United States, and Germany, with the natural science division falling somewhere in between. Hence, Lu Xun observed that Thread of Talk was highly popular among faculty members and students in the humanities division, moderately well received in the natural science division, and not particularly appreciated in the law division, the latter being dominated by faculty members who wrote for Contemporary Review (Wang Jieshi, Zhou Gengsheng, Gao Yihan, Tao Menghe).62 Lu Xun no doubt felt more comfortable in the humanities division, and in the Chinese department in particular, for another reason: it was dominated by men who, like him, were from Zhejiang. Zhu Xie, a student at Beida in the 1920s and the son of Zhu Xizu, the History Department chair who had caused Chen Hansheng such grief, recalled that the humanities division was controlled by the “three Shens and two Mas” from Zhejiang—the brothers Shen Shiyuan, Shen Yinmo, and Shen

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Jianshi, plus the brothers Ma Youyu and Ma Heng. Indeed, at this time a quarter of Beida’s faculty hailed from Zhejiang. Ma Youyu, Shen Yinmo, and Zhu Xizu, the most powerful of the Zhejiang men, were widely criticized for being imperious and for reserving positions of influence at the university for others who belonged to their clique, even if those people were not the most academically qualified.63 The numerous fault lines that ran through Beida did not prevent outsiders from viewing the institution in monolithic terms, however. And, indeed, according to Lin Yutang, while the rivalry between Thread of Talk and Contemporary Review was well known, the divisions between them were often overstated—he recalled that everyone got along well on a personal basis.64 Even though in early 1925 many individuals associated with Contemporary Review were sympathetic with the Duan Qirui government, the regime’s antidemocratic actions and its handling of educational matters made it impossible for the moderates to maintain confidence in the government, thereby drawing them closer to the Thread of Talk position. In March, when Duan named Wang Jiuling Minister of Education, a massive protest movement erupted. Condemning the angry students’ threat of physical violence against Wang, Contemporary Review called for a more orderly form of protest but left no doubt that it disapproved of Duan’s appointment.65 After Wang was thoroughly discredited (he had once spent time in a Shanghai prison for peddling opium) and forced to step down, the new minister of education, Zhang Shizhao—who by this time had completed his shift to the right—also raised Contemporary Review’s hackles.66 In spring 1925 Zhang forbade students to commemorate the May 7 tenth anniversary of the National Day of Humiliation (which marked Japan’s Twenty-one Demands ultimatum of 1915). Contemporary Review rebuked the government for denying citizens the right to display their patriotic sentiments.67 But Zhang Shizhao’s heavy-handed policies could not prevent intellectuals from playing a leading role in the massive anti-imperialist demonstrations that took place in Beijing over the summer of 1925. On June 3, when news of the British-backed killing of twelve protestors in Shanghai on May 30 reached the capital, over 100,000 people demonstrated in the streets, and students at Beida and other universities began a class boycott that was to last for three months. During the summer, faculty members appealed to the government to abrogate the “unequal treaties,” and Beida’s “Rescue the Nation Regiment” (Jiuguotuan) made an effort to educate the broader populace about the effects of imperialism. The Beijing University Student Military Corps raised its profile at


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this time, too, by helping to keep order at the series of enormous public demonstrations that took place that summer. By the mid-1920s, according to one report, half of Beida’s students had adopted military fatigues in place of the scholarly dress style that they previously favored. The Peking Press extolled the Beida Student Military Corps’ contributions and showed how it was linked to the ethos emanating from the Guangdong Student Military Corps based at the Whampoa Military Academy in Guangzhou. Indeed, the Beida Students’ Association sent a cable to the Guangdong Student Military Corps declaring that “if the revolution requires it, we will stand up and go forth.”68 But the Students’ Association did not speak for all Beida students. Just as the May Thirtieth Movement led to greater “politicization and polarization” of Chinese society in general, so it accelerated the fragmentation of the student body. Representatives from different political party factions vied to take charge of the campus demonstrations as a means of raising their own profiles. For example, the anticommunist Society for the Study of Sun Yatsen-ism (Sun Wen zhuyi xuehui), in which Beida professor Gu Mengyu played an important role, and the Youth Party (Qingnian dang), a political faction led by professor Li Huang that endorsed statism (guojia zhuyi), competed for influence from the right, while the Practice Society (Shijian she) competed for power from the left.69 When the Students’ Association conducted elections in fall 1925, the various factions struggled fiercely with one another to gain the upper hand. Cheng Houzhi, a student who supported the Practice Society, recalled: Shortly after I joined the Practice Society the Beijing University Students’ Association held its elections, thus commencing a political battle the likes of which I had never seen before. The Beijing University Students’ Association represented the national political scene of the time in microcosm, so to gain power within the Students’ Association each political party struggled mightily to prevail in the elections. The Communist Party and the left wing of the Nationalist Party cooperated closely against the Nationalist Party’s right wing and the [Youth Party] . . . they conducted their campaign activities all night and all day. . . . Owing to the fact that Li Dazhao led the United Front, that political battle resulted in a definitive victory. In the latter part of 1925 the Beida Students’ Association was firmly controlled by those supporting the United Front policy, and this enabled the citywide Beijing student organization to increase the strength of its support for revolution.70

Commenting on the same elections and on the political spoils that went to the victors, Tao Dun wrote: “If a political party’s representatives were elected to serve in the leadership of the Beida Students’ Association this

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enabled that party to play a leading role in citywide political movements as well. If they were able to control and lead a Beijing citywide movement this gave them the qualifications necessary to lead a nationwide student movement. For that reason every political party paid close attention to the Beida Students’ Association’s elections.”71 The intense competition on the part of national political parties to control the Students’ Association suggests—as Sun Yatsen had observed in November 1924 as he prepared to depart for the North—that political events in Beijing mattered a great deal to China as a whole. In retrospect, however, the May Thirtieth Movement was the moment when the center of China’s geography of political power shifted away from the capital to Shanghai and Guangzhou.72 In the North, warlords and supporters of the United Front revolutionary movement still fought over Beijing, but the May Thirtieth Movement signaled a move away from the student-centered May Fourth model of social protest toward one in which political parties and workers’ organizations played the leading role.73 Neither the political parties nor the working-class movement were centered in the capital. And in terms of the attention it received from the leading political parties, Beida was now forced to compete with other institutions of higher learning—the Whampoa Military Academy and Shanghai University, in particular. As Tao Xisheng wrote: “At that time Shanghai served as the front line of the revolutionary operation based in Guangzhou. . . . Students from the provinces who wanted to study at the Whampoa Military Academy often first went to Shanghai University, from which they transferred to Guangzhou.”74 This is not to say that Beida ceased to occupy an important role among China’s universities. Until 1926 Beijing University and Southeastern University in Nanjing were China’s only comprehensive public institutions of higher learning. Students who studied at Beida in the middle and later part of the 1920s recalled that the university still possessed energy reminiscent of the May Fourth era and that its academic programs were as renowned as its open intellectual and political atmosphere.75 But if Beida did not lose its intellectual and political vitality all at once as a result of the May Thirtieth Movement, by summer 1925 the university’s declining national importance was beyond dispute and its faculty was so internally divided as to undermine the power of its collective voice. These divisions became abundantly clear after Minister of Education Zhang Shizhao called for the closure of Beijing Women’s Normal College (Beijing nüzi shifan daxue) on the grounds that its students were too involved in leftist political activity.76 At that time, several Beida


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professors, including Ma Youyu, Lu Xun, and Zhou Zuoren, were teaching courses at Women’s Normal and had close relations with its progressive-minded students. On August 18 they persuaded Beida’s policy-making council to break off relations with the Ministry of Education as a sign of the National University’s refusal to accept Zhang Shizhao’s action. Zhang responded by threatening to disband Beida as well, and in early September Duan Qirui’s cabinet cut off all funding for Beijing University.77 Not everyone at the National University disagreed with Zhang Shizhao’s decision to disband the women’s college—the faculty council’s vote to break off relations with the Ministry of Education was split virtually down the center. Contemporary Review attacked Beida’s “Zhejiang Clique” (Ma Youyu, Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren, and most of the others who opposed the closure of the college were from Zhejiang) for defending the unruly behavior of Women’s Normal’s students and for strong-arming Beida into breaking off relations with the Ministry of Education over the issue. One Contemporary Review article railed that the Beida faculty government had become an “autocracy controlled by a small number of people” (shaoshu zhuanzhi de jumian).78 As the university’s battle against Zhang Shizhao and the Duan government wore on over the fall, these differences of opinion precipitated a war of words between Contemporary Review, on one side, and Thread of Talk and Vigorous Progress, on the other. Zhang finally resigned his post in early December after a massive demonstration involving tens of thousands of Beijing citizens and student attacks on his residence.79 By that time, however, a new round of warfare between the government in Beijing and Zhang Zuolin seemed increasingly likely, and the Beida community was as divided as it had ever been.

celebrating in the face of crisis December 1925 was therefore an interesting time for Beijing University to celebrate yet another anniversary (the twenty-seventh). On December 17 and 18 the atmosphere must have been festive: in addition to speeches celebrating Beida’s many accomplishments, the university’s laboratories held open houses, and there were photography exhibits, fireworks displays, and a variety of other performances (including Beijing and Kunqu Opera, a women’s chorus, Cantonese music, dance, theater, martial arts, and a Western-style orchestra).80 But the celebration could not paper over the fact that sharp internal divisions tore at the university, whose

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acting chancellor, Jiang Menglin, was actively involved in the ongoing purging of undesirable elements from the Nationalist Party.81 The internal divisions were especially plain to see in a volume of commemorative essays published on the occasion by the Students’ Association. Several essays in that volume openly addressed the rifts within the Beida community. Some authors called for a healing of the differences so that Beida could be as strong as possible at a time when the nation desperately needed its guidance. Others downplayed the significance of the differences, arguing that Beida always drew together when it was attacked from without or when China cried out for intellectual leadership. Still others, such as Zhou Zuoren, said disagreement was not a cause for worry so long as people with opposing views displayed a gentlemanly attitude (shenshi taidu) toward one another and refused to resort to unethical tactics to get their way.82 But some authors unmistakably took sides. In an essay entitled “Beida’s Mission,” law professor Zhou Gengsheng contended that Beijing University was being consumed by political movements that were distracting it from its primary mission—academics. “We are at a moment when our country is facing severe challenges from within and without. At times we must put down our books to get involved in politics and social movements; but even if that kind of activity produces some results, it is not what a university is all about.”83 Zhou’s views were characteristic of those who wrote for Contemporary Review, with which he was strongly identified. However, the twenty-seventh anniversary commemorative volume was edited by the Students’ Association, which was dominated by leftists, so views like Zhou Gengsheng’s were less well represented than those calling for stepped-up political activism. More typical were Gu Mengyu, an economist, who viewed student activism as a sign of progress, and Chen Qixiu, a professor of politics who had recently visited the Soviet Union. Chen asserted that since it had always been the university’s fate to play a direct role in political affairs it was only to be expected that Beida would now be at the center of the anti-imperialist movement and a force behind the national revolution.84 And Gu’s and Chen’s essays were sober compared to the highly emotional tone of most of the student essays. In “The Responsibility that Beida Must Bear at this Time and Place” Wang Dechong called Beijing the most backward place in Asia, and Asia the most pitiful continent in the world, owing to the ravages of imperialism. Wang’s call for action in support of the national revolution has a breathless quality, and his essay flows with exclamation marks that, with a little imagination, one might


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take to be tears of outrage dripping down the page. Deng Wenhui, a Communist activist who, along with his mentor, Li Dazhao, was executed just over a year later, wrote that no force was strong enough to crush the National University. Here, again, was the idea that the “Beida spirit” grew stronger in the face of adversity, an idea that had been on prominent display in 1923 and took on a new salience in the political circumstances in 1925. Reflecting the increasingly popular idea of total political commitment, another student, Ming Zhongqi, wrote that no one could stand on the sidelines of the revolution. All must struggle with a “red-blooded” (rexue) spirit of sacrifice.85 It is striking that all of the essayists, regardless of their political persuasion, alluded to Beida’s unique historical destiny to lead China. Such statements can be expected from this genre of writing, of course. But the repeated expression of this idea is also telling: in 1925 intellectuals remained attached to their traditional mission to help shape the nation’s future by leading from the highest school. Lu Xun revealed succinctly that Beida had come to be an abstract concept in addition to an institution of higher learning, a site whose richness of history gave it the power to make more great contributions in the future. In his essay for the anniversary volume, Lu Xun explained that being associated with Beida was desirable because, except for a small number of reactionaries, the university “always fights for the new, is at the vanguard of the movement for progress and is always doing battle with the forces of darkness.”86 In the two years between 1923 and 1925 the emotional tone was ratcheted up a notch. The plentiful references in the twenty-fifth anniversary volume to the themes of tolerance and freedom of thought as the hallmarks of the “Beida spirit” hardly appear in the twenty-seventh anniversary edition. Instead of tolerance, many of the 1925 essays display a distinct intolerance for any and all who were not willing to prioritize revolutionary activism. Gone are the lengthy and highly reasoned essays by New Culture stalwarts anxious to display their commitment to enlightenment values. In their place are short, fiery pieces that speak of Beida primarily in political terms. One senses in these bravado-filled and melodramatic essays a certain desperation to hold on to the May Fourth tradition of leadership, an unwillingness to give up on the idea that Beida was a world apart, a unique outpost defended by brave young people ready and willing to save the country. The Beida Students’ Association was clearly trying to build a sense of solidarity; for its members, the editors of the commemorative volume, Beida’s anniversary provided an opportunity to remind their classmates that the National University had a

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solemn duty to become the revolutionary base in the North. Not all of Beida’s students or professors agreed with this assessment, but the commemorative volume tended to reflect the outlook of the activists who edited it.

the decline of the may fourth cultural style Student and faculty radicals successfully dominated the discussion about Beida’s mission in December 1925, but they were less successful when it came to protecting the university from what Vera Schwarcz calls “the crucible of political violence.”87 Only three months after the twentyseventh anniversary celebration, in what Lu Xun lamented as the “darkest day since the founding of the Republic,” forty-seven people, three of them Beida students, were killed in the notorious March Eighteenth Massacre of 1926.88 Soon after, Duan Qirui stepped down and Zhang Zuolin seized power in the capital, where he proceeded to impose a reign of terror. In late April, a journalist with close ties to Beida, Shao Piaoping, was executed, and the next several months saw the arrest of a number of leading student activists. Thus, just as the Northern Expedition was getting under way in Guangdong aboveground, political activists were forced underground in Beijing. Tao Dun described the repressive atmosphere: Armed police and gray-uniformed officers assigned to track down criminals were everywhere. . . . At Beida there were small wooden booths with windows facing the dormitories and the courtyards. . . . [Guards] sat in the booths watching everyone that came and went. They paid no attention to well-dressed students who spoke with a Fengtian accent, or who spoke English and affected a Western look; the ones who dressed simply and who frequently left their dormitories with people who came to meet them were the ones they watched carefully. . . . If someone came back several times in a short period of time [the guards] would watch him or her very carefully, and somebody would be assigned to tail them.89

Another student, Chuan Dao, wrote: “What we most feared was that someone would suddenly call our name from behind as we walked down the street. The chairman of the Beijing University Students’ Association was called to in that way while walking on East Jingshan Road; after being identified he was arrested and taken away. It was common for the university to be surrounded and occupied by military police.”90 Initially, instead of disbanding it outright, Zhang Zuolin undercut Beida by means of such intimidation techniques and by refusing it ade-


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quate funding. In fall 1926 the university’s financial situation grew so bleak that it could no longer meet its most basic obligations. Its electricity and water supplies were shut off and the company that provided its coal sued Beida to recoup money it was owed. Moreover, the payment of salaries fell so far in arrears that workers who performed menial tasks on campus were forced to pull rickshaws in the evenings simply to get by, while professors, driven to take on teaching duties at other schools to make up for the shortfall in their earnings, frequently missed their classes at the National University. Given that Beida was barely in working order, a significant portion of the faculty argued that, to be fair to the students, the university should be shut down until the financial picture improved. Many professors simply stopped teaching their classes.91 Then, in summer 1927, Zhang Zuolin directed that Beida be divided into distinct administrative parts. The humanities and natural sciences divisions were put under new leadership and combined into a new “Capital College,” or Jingshi daxuexiao; the administration of this new institution was highly autocratic, its curriculum was blatantly reactionary, and many of its professors were political appointees. Beida’s law division was detached from the other two divisions and placed under the purview of a separate college.92 Beida lost not only its identity, but its energy and dynamism as well. Students left en masse and the number of applicants dropped precipitously. “Revolutionary youths placed their hope in Guangzhou,” Tao Dun recalled. “Students seeking to escape the warlords’ pressure in Beijing streamed south. Beida’s student population dropped dramatically. . . . The Shatan neighborhood [around the university] took on a sleepy and deserted feel.”93 Many students and recent university graduates from Beijing made their way to Shanghai. The room for maneuver resulting from its multiple legal jurisdictions and the vibrant cultural environment produced by the wealth, worldliness, and heterogeneity of its population made Shanghai the most hospitable city for Chinese intellectuals throughout the next decade. When Shen Yanbing and Zheng Zhenduo moved to Shanghai in the early 1920s to work for the Commercial Press, they had forged a critical link between intellectuals in the capital and the publishing industry based in Shanghai. While some intellectuals reacted against the growing power of the publishing industry, many more viewed it as offering an attractive career opportunity.94 A letter from the Commercial Press on the front page of the Beijing University Daily in May 1924 illustrates that Shanghai publishers likewise viewed Beida as an obvious place to focus their recruitment efforts. The Commercial Press was looking to hire

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thirty graduates from prestigious Chinese universities who were fluent in both English and Chinese for summer work. Though it would not pay the students’ travel expenses to and from Shanghai, the press offered to cover room and board and to pay one hundred dollars for six weeks of work.95 According to Tao Xisheng, who was working as an editor in Shanghai by the mid-1920s, between 1919 and 1925 the Compilation and Translation Bureau (bianyisuo) at the Commercial Press hired over two hundred people from the academic world to serve as editors. For a recent college graduate, this work paid reasonably well; Tao Xisheng received a salary of eighty silver dollars a month, enough to purchase roughly half of an expensive wardrobe.96 Under Zhang Zuolin the repression became so heavy that many professors found it impossible to remain in Beijing. Jiang Menglin had left soon after the March Eighteenth Massacre, and over the next half-year so too did a sizable portion of the Beida faculty. Some who stayed, such as Li Dazhao—who was no longer formally associated with the university—paid with their lives. By the end of 1927, with Beijing University destroyed as a center of intellectual vitality and political activism, both Thread of Talk and Contemporary Review had relocated to Shanghai.97 Many displaced Beijing intellectuals who moved south drew on personal connections to land appointments at other universities and remained committed to academic life. However, their mass departure from the capital in the late 1920s signaled a major blow to the possibility that cosmopolitan intellectuals would be able to lead China’s political and cultural overhaul. Enlightened voices continued to be sounded, but those voices were less audible than they had been in the years immediately before. During the decade that followed, intellectuals were increasingly constrained and alienated by the dictates of a political leader—Chiang Kai-shek—who viewed them as being so “vain, conceited, shallow, and irresponsible” that they threatened to bring about “the fall of the nation” and the “extinction of the race,” and by a government that viewed schools as critically important vehicles for the propagation of an ideology that “exalted nationalism, state power, party discipline, [and] leadership worship.”98 The intellectual sterility brought about by the “partification of education” (danghua jiaoyu)—one of whose architects was former Beida professor Zhu Jiahua—was not the only force that threatened the status of May Fourth–style intellectuals.99 Their priorities and concerns were also drowned out by the cacophony of Shanghai’s urban culture, where a myriad of ideological and cultural tastes competed for a share of the


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market. The commercialization of intellectual life that took place in the 1920s brought both opportunity and risk to Chinese thinkers. While publishing for the commercial marketplace gave academics who had been employed by the National University a significant autonomy from the state, it also forced them to elevate commercial factors to a new level of importance. Intellectuals were ever more beholden to popular tastes, for increasingly it was ordinary Shanghai people and their daily consuming habits that determined modern Chinese cultural norms, values, and styles. As Yeh has recently written, “Modernity was about the material transformation of everyday life for hundreds of thousands, rather than the organizational mobilization of an elitist few for a wellarticulated cause.”100 For intellectuals in the May Fourth mold, this forced a fundamental reorientation. Only a few years earlier, leaders of the Literary Association had asserted that they were concerned with “art for life’s sake,” while members of the rival Creation Society (Chuangzao she) stressed “art for art’s sake.” The elitism of these intellectuals, who tended to regard what was popular among readers as so much trash, put them increasingly out of touch with China’s urban readership. Zheng Zhenduo, a leading literary critic, recognized this early on: “When a [new literary] work is published, we think a lot of people will pay attention; but we wait and wait, and there is never any reaction; it is as if a rock has sunk into the sea.” Rather than read good books, Zheng lamented, people opt for “entertainment books” and “leisure magazines” that lack literary value and were written for the sole purpose of making money.101 Lu Xun was among the first to sense that the line between commerce and purer intellectual work was blurring, and he was also one of the first to satirize it. When [Thread of Talk] first came out the choice of advertisements was very strict, and if the members did not think well of a new book they would not print a notice of it. . . . But once the magazine’s headquarters moved to Shanghai, even doctors’ names appeared in it, to say nothing of book notices. An advertisement for a stocking factory appeared too, and even one for pills to cure involuntary emissions. True, no one can guarantee that the readers do not suffer involuntary emissions, the more so since this is no crime; but for remedial measures one should read Shen pao or, to be on the safe side, the Medical Journal.102

Criticism of commercialism at this juncture often went hand in hand with attacks on Shanghai. That city’s publishers may have provided intellectuals with an important new source of income that enabled them to

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achieve an unprecedented degree of independence from the state, but many intellectuals steeped in the May Fourth elitist ethos also seemed to sense that they were now flirting with a potentially even more compromising dependency on the marketplace. For, as far as many of them were concerned, the marketplace was guided by the principles of prostitution. How else to explain the fact that a publisher like the Commercial Press produced socially beneficial literature at the same time that it put lowbrow “butterfly” literature on the market?103 Undoubtedly, the Beijing-based intellectuals (the Capital School, or Jing pai) who initiated the debate between themselves and the so-called Shanghai School (Hai pai) of writers in the late 1920s and early 1930s had many serious points to make with regard to the philosophy of literature. At the same time, however, their attack on the unrefined tastes of Shanghai’s reading population should not obscure the fact that many writers who started their careers in Beijing as members of the Literary Association had long since moved to Shanghai, or that the adherents of both “schools” accepted that it was legitimate for intellectuals to write for money. Despite the Capital School’s dismissal of commercial publishing, it would have been difficult for any of its adherents to deny that publishing for the market had become a more or less universally accepted practice among intellectuals—themselves included—in the decade following the May Fourth Movement. What seems just as clear is that this situation came about to a great extent because the May Fourth Movement grew out of cosmopolitan intellectuals’ long-standing belief that they had a right and a duty to educate the Chinese people. So much the better, then, that the publishing industry was willing to help them communicate their ideas about what kind of new culture was best for the Chinese people. They accepted the market, in other words, because it appeared for a time to favor their agenda, to be but a new avenue for the dissemination of their eagerly awaited instruction. By the late 1920s, however, the embrace of the market had begun to appear a Faustian bargain to those intellectuals still wedded to the cosmopolitan ideals associated with the intellectual culture of the fading capital. They came to realize that the market was not merely an avenue for the dissemination of their ideas, but a competitive arena governed by values wholly different from their own and completely beyond their control. Intellectuals were forced to understand that theirs was fast becoming merely one cultural style among many and that they were not producing what most people wanted to buy. For most of them, especially


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those associated with the so-called Capital School, the concern was not whether their profits were going to be limited, but rather whether they had lost their privileged place in the nation’s political culture. It appears that they had; the Beijing-based intellectuals who railed against the cheap values of the Shanghai School were at the same time lamenting that the Beida-centered, rationalistic, May Fourth vision of the correct path to modernity was not particularly popular with China’s cultural consumers.

upholding the “beida spirit” In retrospect, it appears clear that the destruction of Beijing University by Zhang Zuolin’s warlord forces brought an end to the university’s “glory years.” Beida lost much of its dynamism in the final years of the 1920s, and by then it was undeniable that Shanghai had eclipsed Beijing (destined to be called “Beiping” for the next two decades) as China’s most important city. But Beida did not just fade away. Instead, activists worked to restore it to its pre-1927 status, thus ensuring that the university would endure as a site of great cultural and political meaning. In winter 1927–28 hundreds of Beida students risked their lives to organize a clandestine movement to reopen their university at the earliest possible moment. When the Guomindang took control of Beijing in June 1928, these underground activists believed the opportunity to take their movement above ground had arrived. Wasting no time, they drafted a statement calling for Beida’s restoration. “We . . . have suffered cruel treatment under the wicked power of the warlords for a full year, but Beida’s innate spirit still stands out. . . . Now that the Northern Expedition has succeeded,” the university must “be restored.”104 Rather than restoring the university, however, Guomindang leaders seeking to rationalize and impose discipline on the nation’s college campuses announced plans for a University Council headed by Cai Yuanpei. The new system mandated that Beida be combined with nine other colleges to form a National Beiping University, which, under Li Shizeng’s leadership, was to be the leading higher educational institution in the Beiping “university district.” Many Beida students assumed the Guomindang was out to dismantle their university because it feared the tradition of protest that had flourished there after the May Fourth Movement. The announcement of the university district plan, along with the Guomindang’s staunch opposition to the Communist party and its move to indoctrinate students in nationalist ideology, alienated many Beida faculty members and students.105 According to Tao Dun, although there

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was standing room only in the university’s thousand-person-capacity auditorium when Chiang Kai-shek visited the university at this juncture, the Guomindang leader nevertheless met a very tepid response. Many in the audience made for the exits early in the speech, after Chiang denounced the Communist Party. Before it was over, so many people had departed that a furious Chiang was left talking to an empty auditorium, save for the hundred or so ardent supporters who occupied the front rows.106 Soon, a full-fledged movement aimed at bringing about Beida’s restoration and autonomy got under way. In late 1928 radical students formed groups such as the “Save the School Dare to Die Corps” and “Restore the School with Armed Force Corps”; in November, some five hundred of them marched under the Beida flag to the offices of the Beiping university district to hold a rally. Finding no one there, the students proceeded to smash the building’s windows. Guomindang authorities attempted to intimidate the students, at one point sending in hundreds of armed police and soldiers, but the students did not back down. In fact, a short while later, they sent representatives to Nanjing to present their case to the central government. In early 1929 the movement finally got some purchase when Cai Yuanpei interceded as a mediator. It would still be several months before the matter was settled, but in August 1929, exhausted by the constant unrest, Guomindang authorities restored Beida to its former status.107 Predictably, the university’s thirty-first anniversary celebration was a highly charged affair. The victorious effort to preserve Beida confirmed many in their belief that the university was indomitable and destined always to play a leading role in the nation. Essays from a commemorative volume reveal a highly optimistic mood and an urge to downplay internal divisions. They also reveal a strong desire among many, especially students, to reclaim Beida’s “rightful” position as China’s most visible university. In this vein, Wang Jingming, a law student, wrote: “Beida’s victory is a victory for the revolution, and Beida’s losses are the revolution’s losses.”108 To back up such claims, many essayists provided exhaustive lists of all the national movements that Beida had led during the 1920s. As one of them put it, “after bringing Beida back to life we feel our responsibility is even greater than before. . . . We need both to continue the spirit of the past and to create a new life for the future.”109 It is hard not to conclude that the authors of these essays were overcompensating for the fact that their university had in fact lost its unique position. Nanjing was now the capital, and by this time the Guomindang


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had established national universities there and in Wuchang and Guangzhou. These institutions drew students from the Jiangnan region and farther south who a few years earlier might well have attended Beijing University, and Zhu Jiahua, chancellor of National Central University (Guoli Zhongyang daxue) in Nanjing, was clearly working to “snatch from Beida the intellectual leadership of the nation.”110 Nor was Beida the only university whose students claimed a heroic, activist tradition—indeed, it was now competing for leadership in that realm with other universities in Beiping, and universities in Shanghai, Nanjing, and elsewhere had long since adopted the techniques and nationalist orientation that Beida had pioneered.111 In addition to emphasizing ideological indoctrination, the university model established under the Guomindang focused on utilitarian subjects (science and technology) rather than liberal arts. Constructing the nation was now the overriding goal, and colleges and universities were to be “training grounds for the technically competent who were also ideologically correct.”112 Beida, too, was pressured to move in that direction during the Nanjing Decade, but the cradle of the New Culture Movement was never fully subdued by the Guomindang. Beijing University was not nearly as vibrant as it had been in the 1920s, and even in Beiping it was rivaled by Qinghua University academically and in terms of political activism. During the December Ninth Movement, Beida took a back seat to both Qinghua and Yanjing University, which, given their American connections, were freer of Guomindang political control than the national university.113 Nevertheless, informed by its own history and by the way it was recalled, Beida continued to retain its identity as a laissez-faire center of critical thinking positioned against the majority of Chinese universities and their overwhelming emphasis on practical knowledge.114

Conclusion

The early history of Beijing University illuminates the struggle by intellectuals to reposition themselves after the collapse of the late-imperial Confucian order for the purpose of maintaining their elite social status and guiding China along the path to modernity. That effort began at the national university well before the May Fourth Movement, and it reflected the enduring hold on Chinese intellectuals of an elitist worldview which held that intellectuals were the appropriate leaders of society. By situating May Fourth in the context of the broader early history of Beijing University, I have sought to illustrate the extent to which that famously radical movement was rooted in a variety of rather traditional attitudes and concerns. In this light, rather than being characterized by the widespread embrace of Western liberal values and by a sharp break with the past, as many of its participants claimed (and which historians have tended to accept), the ideas and priorities that animated the May Fourth Movement are revealed to have been dialectically related to those that intellectuals commonly possessed in late-imperial times. Radical attitudes did not spring forth wholly formed in 1915 or 1919; instead, they emerged over time in dialogue with old-style ways of thinking and behaving, and in response to challenges that intellectuals could not meet by means of the traditional modes of thought and action to which most of them continued to adhere. From the outset, Beijing University was endowed with characteristics that encouraged intellectuals to view it as a potential platform from 250

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which to exert leadership over Chinese society. As I have shown, Beida evolved into such a powerful platform because it was a familiar enough type of institution to tap into historical reservoirs of meaning but not so familiar that it was resistant to innovation. Nevertheless, the refashioning of Beida was a gradual, difficult process which involved numerous internal power struggles in addition to countless battles against conservative forces outside the university. These power struggles and battles involved an ongoing positioning for power and entailed constant competition to see who could most effectively interpret and manipulate the values, ideas, and practices that informed Chinese political culture. The struggles were reflected in hiring and firing decisions, curricular policies, the use of language and the framing of issues, the founding of journals and extracurricular societies, political organizing, and so forth. The dramatic events of May and June 1919 transformed Beijing University into a widely recognized leader of Chinese intellectual life and public opinion—a symbol whose power exceeded that of a mere institution of higher learning. Ironically, though, Beida’s high profile guaranteed that the struggle for dominance within the university would grow fiercer and that intellectuals at other universities would imitate the Beida model, thereby robbing Beijing University of its singularity. In the midand late 1920s, activists struggled to hold Beida together so that it could continue to serve as a base of power, while at the same time engaging in constant battles against warlord governments that systematically starved the university of funds. Moreover, by the time Zhang Zuolin crushed Beijing University in the late 1920s, it was clear that China’s Shanghaicentered, middle-class reading public had minimal interest in the highly serious, moralistic messages emanating from elitist intellectuals, and that such intellectuals were unlikely to recapture the discursive space that had opened to them briefly during the late 1910s and early 1920s. If the power that progressive, humanistic intellectuals held at Beida in the late 1910s and mid-1920s was fleeting, the story that followed is not totally uninspiring. The momentum generated by the struggle to preserve the university in the late 1920s launched it into the new decade with a renewed sense of mission. The protests against Japanese imperialism in the early 1930s added another chapter to Beida’s hallowed tradition.1 Importantly, that struggle once more demonstrated that because the Beida story thrives on adversity it is exceedingly difficult to suppress through violent means. This, then, appears to be the key to the “Beida spirit”—this dialectical process involving real people acting in real time over and over again,

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Conclusion

very much inspired by the shadow of history that falls across their university. Since 1949, as that shadow has extended its reach, its meaning has grown more confusing, for the Hundred Flowers and Anti-rightist Campaigns, as well as the Cultural Revolution, all began or flared with great intensity at Beijing University. Thus, viewed over the course of a full century, it is clear that Beida’s vanguard tradition has led to horror as well as heroism, and that control over the university and its symbolically powerful history has been continuously contested. Since the end of the Mao era, a number of protest movements have unfolded at Beijing University in dialogue with the university’s May Fourth tradition, and these have enabled Beida to reclaim its mantle as the center of patriotically inspired, liberal Chinese student activism. In the 1980s Beida played a crucial role in the so-called “culture fever” (wenhuare) that swept through Chinese intellectual circles.2 The vitality of the tradition of critical mindedness at the university during that decade was also exemplified by the Salon on the Lawn and the Democracy Salon, extracurricular forums founded by students for the purpose of airing social criticism and exploring Western philosophical traditions. Among the numerous prominent intellectuals invited to speak to the Democracy Forum was Fang Lizhi, a distinguished astrophysicist and an alumnus who had recently been expelled from the Communist Party for supporting student protests that occurred in the winter of 1986–87.3 When he addressed the forum, Fang called for freedom of thought and for respect for the principles of science and democracy; he viewed Beijing University as an especially appropriate place to address these themes because, given its history, he understood Beida to be the symbolic home of Chinese intellectuals.4 Fang Lizhi’s message was deeply moving to Wang Dan, a founder of the Democracy Salon and a student leader in 1989. In a document addressed to Beida’s authorities during the massive demonstrations that spring, Wang and his schoolmates wrote: This marks the seventieth anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. As the birthplace of this extraordinary movement of democratic enlightenment, Beijing University has always held high the banners of democracy and science and marched at the very forefront of our nation’s progress. Today, as Chinese commemorate the May Fourth Movement, we, students of Beijing University, the hallowed ground of democracy, continue to hope that we will be able to carry on the distinguished tradition of Beijing University.5

During the 1989 demonstrations, Wang Dan was perhaps the most widely respected student leader, and, according to a scholar who has

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done a close study of the movement, Beijing University was “the most radical of the universities.” As Wang’s statement indicates, Beida’s student leaders were intensely aware of their university’s historical legacy and seemed to believe that they were duty bound to contribute their own heroic chapter. Though activists from other Chinese universities resented the fact, Beida students generally “talked as if they were the unquestioned leaders of the movement,” an idea that was captured in the slogan “The whole nation does not fall asleep as long as Beijing University is still awake.”6 In spite of Beida’s leadership role in 1989, however, the activism of that year did not carry over with much force into the following decade. This was due partly to effective state intervention, of course, but it also had to do with the emphasis on money making that swept China with hurricane force in the 1990s. Indeed, the combination of state repression and shifting cultural values led intellectuals across China to reevaluate the activist path that so many of them had pursued in the 1980s. Increasingly, commercial values, which were centered most conspicuously—as they had been in the 1920s—in Shanghai, overtook the political activism that had been so dramatically in evidence in Beijing and other intellectual centers just a few years earlier. As recent college graduates “jumped into the sea” (xiahai) of commercial opportunity, politics receded in importance, and it became increasingly easy to find intellectuals who judged the student activism of the 1980s in harsh terms. At the start of Beida’s second century and approaching fifteen years since the tumultuous and tragic events of 1989, then, the greatest challenge facing those wishing to uphold the university’s tradition of critical mindedness and opposition may not be the power of the state—though it still looms large—but rather the apparent indifference to or fatigue with heroism that has overtaken the Chinese people. Under the circumstances, if a selfstyled heroic movement is to emerge from the university in the near term, it seems likely that it will draw more heavily from Beida’s legacy of strident nationalism than from its equally important legacy of broad, independent-minded intellectual inquiry.

Abbreviations Used in Notes

BDRK

Beijing daxue rikan (Beijing University Daily)

BDSL

Beijing daxue shiliao: 1898–1911 (Historical Materials on Beijing University: 1898–1911)

BDXB

Beijing daxue xuebao (Peking University Journal: Humanities and Social Sciences)

BUSA

Beijing University School Archive, Beijing

CYPQJ

Cai Yuanpei quanji (Cai Yuanpei’s Collected Works)

ESWZN

Beijing daxue ershiwu zhounian jinian kan (Beijing University’s Twenty-fifth Anniversary Commemorative Volume)

GBJNK

Guoli Beijing daxue jinian kan (National Beijing University’s Commemorative Volumes)

JYZ

Jiaoyu zazhi (Educational Review)

WSHYL

Wusi yundong huiyilu (Memoirs about the May Fourth Movement)

WSST

Wusi shiqi de shetuan (Societies of the May Fourth Era)

WSQK

Wusi shiqi qikan jieshao (Introduction to the Journals of the May Fourth Era)

XQN

Xin qingnian (New Youth)

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Notes

preface 1. In China, Beida is often referred to in English as “National Peking University.” I use “Beijing University” because that is the more common usage in the United States. 2. In the sixteenth century Beijing’s northwest suburbs became home to summer estates belonging to aristocrats and literati. Here, Mi Wanzhong, a jinshi of 1595 and an accomplished painter and calligrapher, constructed the highly acclaimed Shaoyuan (Dipper Garden). During the Qing dynasty, Shaoyuan and other estates in the vicinity belonged to the Imperial Court. In 1860, when British and French troops destroyed the Yuanmingyuan (Summer Palace), they also destroyed some of the adjacent garden estates. Thereafter, the area was inhabited by impoverished Banner families and became informally open for public use. In 1921 the American missionary school, Yanjing University, purchased the land and built the campus that now houses Beijing University (Hou Renzhi 1988, 99–108, 119–49, 215–23; Naquin 2000, 187–90, 264–68, 311–14). 3. Yue Daiyun and Wakeman 2000.

introduction: locating beijing university in history 1. Beida was in fact founded in December 1898. The May 4 date reflects the significance the Chinese Communist Party grants to the May Fourth Movement. 2. At that time, my Ph.D. dissertation on early Beida was published in Chinese by Beijing University Press. 3. This information derives from my own observations or from Li Xianyu 1999. 4. Jingshi daxuetang is also sometimes translated as “Capital University.” 257

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5. Li Xianyu 1999, 89–166. 6. Ibid., 433, 336; Guo Luoji 1998, 28. 7. Modern scholars identify the second century b.c.e. as the time when a verifiable state university can first be located in the ancient Chinese past. The institution established by the Han dynasty, the Taixue, served as one of the main routes into officialdom for sons of aristocrats. It remained a politically important institution associated with aristocratic prestige through the fall of the Song dynasty. From the fourteenth century the Taixue was subsumed within the Guozijian, which supervised a number of higher educational institutions and publishing houses. In the late imperial period the Guozijian was overshadowed as a channel of bureaucratic recruitment and social mobility by the examination system and the practice of personal recommendation (Woodside 1994, 466–67; Lee 1985, 55–76, 264–68; Wakeman 1972, 38). In 1948 Hu Shi asserted that Beida inherited the tradition of the Taixue; Feng Youlan subsequently backed the assertion. For supporters of and dissenters from this view in 1998, see Li Xianyu 1999, 425–26; BDXB 35, no. 2: 7–9, 65–69, 70–74, 86–90. 8. Jiang Zemin 1999, 2. For Lu Xun’s original essay, see Beida xueshenghui zhoukan 1925, 8–9. I arrived at this conclusion during a conversation with Yeh Wen-hsin. 9. “Shishi” bianjibu. 10. I attended one such meal. 11. Liu Junning 1998, 3. Until being forced out in 2000 by Communist Party leaders, Liu Junning was a political theorist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Eckholm 2000). 12. Qian Liqun 2000. Qian Liqun, a professor at Beida, is out of favor with the Communist Party (Eckholm 2000). 13. Beijing daxue xiaokan bianjibu 1988, 354. 14. “China’s Amazing Half Century” 1999. 15. Fujitani 1996, 11. By “vehicles of meaning,” Fujitani means rituals, holidays, imperial pageants, monuments, symbols, and texts. 16. See, e.g., Chow Tse-tsung 1960 ; Israel 1966, 1998; Schwarcz 1986; Dirlik 1989, 1991; and Zarrow 1990. Yeh Wen-hsin 1990 discusses Beida’s history as an important subject in its own right, but because one of her main purposes is to typologize China’s universities, she cannot devote a great deal of space to any one school in particular. 17. Gloria Davies 2001, 1. 18. Hao Chang 1987, 8. 19. Woodside 1994, 459. 20. For a rich study of different university models in the 1920s and 1930s, and a good discussion of Shanghai University, a radical institution that embodied the quest for a higher purpose, see Yeh Wen-hsin 1990. Another radical institution, National Labor University, is discussed in detail in Chan and Dirlik 1991. Finally, Southwest Associated University, which came together during World War II, and which incorporated Beijing University, is also an excellent example of an institution of higher learning devoted to a higher purpose (see Israel 1998).


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21. Chow Tse-tsung 1960; Schwarcz 1986. Again, Yeh Wen-hsin 1990 provides an important exception. 22. For example, Chow Tse-tsung depicts May Fourth as a movement shaped by Western liberalism, and Vera Schwarcz depicts it as having been shaped by Western Enlightenment–style critical mindedness. In China, the May Fourth Movement has generally been treated as the moment when intellectuals embraced Marxism (see, e.g., Xiao 1985). 23. Important works of historical scholarship that treat May Fourth from a new perspective include Zarrow 1990; Duara 1995; Yeh Wen-hsin 1996; and Schoppa 1995. Important works of revisionist literary scholarship include Lydia Liu 1995; Wang 1997; Lee 2000; and Dolez˘elová-Velingerová and Král 2001. 24. On the theme of awakening China, see Fitzgerald 1996. 25. On the differences between Chinese political culture approached as a creative and fluid process and the older psychological-reductionist approach to the subject, see Perry 1992. 26. Hunt 1984, 13. 27. Ye Weili 2001, 5. 28. Schoppa 1995; Yeh Wen-hsin 1996; see also Strand 2000. 29. Lee 2000; Yeh Wen-hsin 2000, 4–7. 30. On “partification of education,” see Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, chs. 5, 7.

chapter 1: schools, politics, and reform in the nineteenth century 1. Woodside 1994, 459. 2. The term daxue is an example of what Lydia Liu refers to as a “roundtrip neologism.” It was first translated as “university” by Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century. In the Meiji era the Japanese employed the term to refer to institutions they established on the model of the Western university (Liu 1995, 283). The Japanese first translated university as “Daigakko” but changed the translation to “Daigaku” in 1870 (Marshall 1994, 26). “Daigakko,” writes Marshall, was a term “with explicit allusions to the only official seat of higher learning in the ancient Japanese court.” 3. Hayhoe 1996, 15. 4. Shils 1997, 40; Rudy 1984, 97–99, 136; Woodside 1994, 464. 5. Teng and Fairbank 1982, 51. 6. On earlier government schools dedicated to foreign-language training, see Hao Ping 1998, 21–22. 7. Biggerstaff 1961, 79. 8. Cheng Pei-kai, Lestz, and Spence 1999, 155. 9. Teng and Fairbank 1982, 75. 10. Liu Kwang-Ching 1976, 92. 11. Teng and Fairbank 1982, 76. 12. Martin 1901, 383; Naquin 2000, 90, 96, 376. 13. Elman 1989. 14. Liu Kwang-Ching 1976, 95–97.

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15. Martin was a Presbyterian missionary in China for over a decade before turning to secular educational work. He excelled as a translator into Chinese of important Western works. Among Martin’s champions was Robert Hart, who was Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service from 1863. Hart paid the Tongwen Guan’s costs out of the Customs Service’s annual revenues (Covell 1978, 145–46, 183). 16. Martin 1907, 209–10; Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 101. Biggerstaff agrees that the Tongwen Guan failed to achieve the degree of influence hoped for by its champions but also states, “When both its strengths and its weaknesses are considered . . . the Tongwen Guan was anything but a failure” (Biggerstaff 1961, 151–52). On the careers of the school’s graduates, see Hao Ping 1998, 74–82; Sang Bing 1995, 55–56. 17. Biggerstaff 1961, 79. 18. Kwong 1993, 266–73; Biggerstaff 1961, 196. 19. Sang Bing 1995, 35–37, 48. 20. Woodside 1990, 166. 21. Meskill 1982, 66–138. 22. Wakeman 1972. 23. Elman 2000, 372. 24. Elman 1991. 25. Woodside 1990, 167–68. 26. Ibid., 169–70, 182–83; Guy 1987, 18, 24. 27. See Keenan 1994 for a discussion of this process. 28. Ibid., ch. 3, esp. 50–51. 29. Ibid., 38–44; Liu Kwang-Ching 1994, 84–85. 30. Ayers 1971, ch. 3; Kwong 1993, 273–77. 31. Woodside 1994, 483. 32. Ibid. 33. Grieder 1981, 75. 34. During the Qing period, practitioners of the qingyi style of remonstrance, a mode of political discourse with ancient origins, first gained prominence in the aftermath of the He Shen corruption scandal. Following China’s defeat in the Opium War, they had a permanent presence on the political scene (Rankin 1982; Schrecker 1980; Polacheck 1992). 35. In the late nineteenth century Qingliu rhetoric accompanied a profound political transformation occasioned by the progressive weakening of the central government and the steadily growing power of local gentry. The Qingliu group derived power from its ties to networks of powerful local gentry who supported it in exchange for the “representation” of their own interests in the capital (Rankin 1982). 36. Ayers 1971, 54–62, 124–32. 37. Price 1974, ch. 2. 38. Wakeman 1972, 63. 39. Liang Qichao 1998, 40–45. 40. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 8. 41. Hao Ping 1998, 107–10; Bays 1978, 21. 42. Supporters of the Emperor and the Empress comprised informal net-


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works of ideologically and politically sympathetic officials. For an argument that calls these factions into question, see Kwong 1984, 62–68. 43. Zhou Cheng’en 1998, 1. 44. Kuhn 1995, 302, 313. For another interesting discussion of this subject, see Judge 1996. 45. Elman 2000, 588–94. 46. Woodside 1994, 462–76. 47. de Bary 1993, 71. 48. Ma Xiaoquan 1997, 191. 49. de Bary 1993, 31. 50. Ibid., 105. Here, Huang is making reference to the student role in the power struggle between officials and eunuchs in the last decades of the Eastern Han. The eunuchs prevailed in that struggle, imprisoning and killing dozens of officials in the process. 51. Ibid., 107. 52. On the Japanese influence on the late-Qing reformers, see Abe 1987. 53. Marshall 1994; Bartholomew 1978; Smith 1972, 5. 54. Smith 1972, 8. 55. Woodside 1994, 464, 477–79; Naquin 2000, 96. Many more students were classified as students of the Guozijian than were enrolled there at any given time. Often they lived in the provinces and were the sons of rich merchants who had simply purchased the status. 56. Martin 1901, 378–82. 57. In 1884 Zheng Guanying put forth a similar suggestion (see Qu Xingui and Tong Fuyong 1997, 74–85; Bailey 1990, 21). 58. BDSL, 1:20–22. 59. Hao Ping 1998, 115; BDSL, 1:22–23. 60. BDSL, 1:23–25. 61. Ibid., 1:24. 62. Ibid., 1:13–14. 63. Ibid., 1:23–24. 64. Ibid., 1:24. 65. Ibid., 1:24. 66. Ibid., 1:24. 67. Hao Ping 1998, 117–18. 68. BDSL, 1:11; Harrell 1992, 15–17. 69. Hao Ping 1998, 131. 70. Wang Xiaoqiu, “Wuxu weixin yu Jingshi daxuetang,” BDXB 35:2, 79; Sang Bing 1995, 40–41. 71. BDSL, 1:45–46. 72. Ibid., 1:82 73. Ibid., 1:82 74. Ibid., 1:81. 75. Ibid., 1:82. 76. Levenson 1970, 288. 77. I discuss this issue and Levenson 1968 at greater length in Weston 2002. 78. The Ministry of Finance allocated over twenty thousand taels to get the

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project underway and proposed that the school’s annual budget thereafter be drawn from the interest on five million taels that the Ministry had invested in the Sino-Russian Bank (BDSL, 1:511). 79. BDSL, 1:555. 80. Yu Tongkui 1998, 23; Zhou Zuoren 1970, 1:316. 81. Naquin 2000, 180, 406; Gamble 1921, 272. 82. BDSL, 1:85; Chen 1993, 3. 83. Kwong 1984, 165–68. 84. Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 117–23; Zhu Youxian 1983–91, 1:675; Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 3. On Martin’s appointment, see Hao Ping 1998, 136; and Covell 1978, 185–86, 196–97. According to Kang Youwei, who often inflated his own importance, Sun Jia’nai originally hoped he would serve as chief instructor (Zhu Youxian 1983–91, 1:664–65). 85. Foreign professors who taught specialty courses were to receive at least three hundred taels per month, whereas the highest paid Chinese instructors were to receive just fifty taels per month (BDSL, 1:85). 86. BDSL, 1:322–27; Zhu Youxian 1983–91, 1:678–83; Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 99–101. 87. Zhu Youxian 1983–91, 1:675; Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 130; Zheng Ning 1999. 88. BDSL, 1:47. 89. Feng Youlan 1984, 25. 90. BDSL, 1:83–84. 91. Zhu Youxian 1983–91, 1:678. 92. Cixi was willing to support the process if she was able to control those in charge of introducing Western learning. Li Hongzhang’s support for the university is also likely to have influenced the Empress Dowager to support it (Hao Ping 1998, 148–49; Wang Xiaoqiu, “Wuxu weixin yu Jingshi daxuetang,” BDXB 35:2, 82; see also Lund 1956, 129–32). 93. Zhuang Jifa 1970, 19; Luo Dunyong 1913, 2. 94. Wang Xiaoqiu, “Wuxu weixin yu Jingshi daxuetang,” BDXB 35:2, 82; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 14; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 143; Lund 1956, 126; Hao Ping 1998, 151–52. 95. Zhang Jiqian 1998, 13; Lund 1956, 134; Zou Shuwen 1998, 8; Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 104. 96. BDSL, 1:50. 97. In 1901 the court acknowledged its mistake and rewarded Xu Jingcheng’s descendants with offices. 98. Zhuang Jifa 1970, 143; BDSL, 1:556; Martin 1900, 123.

chapter 2: the imperial university and late-qing beijing 1. Wakeman 1972, 57; see also Yang Dongping 1994, 45. 2. Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 56, 91. 3. On Chinese intellectuals’ understanding of the non-Western world at the turn of the century, see Karl 2002.


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4. Rankin 1971, esp. ch. 3 and 4; Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, ch. 3 (quotation is from p. 91). 5. Hayhoe 1983, 330–31; Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 102–5. 6. Harrell 1992, 2. On these students’ backgrounds, see Chapter 3. 7. On Shanghai’s publishing industry, see Reed 1996; on journalism in Shanghai, see Judge 1996. 8. Reynolds 1993, 2, 4. 9. Zhang’s ties to Ronglu were recorded by Wu Rulun (Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 10). 10. Guo Luoji 1998, 29–31; Lund 1956, 157. 11. Deng Yunxiang 1995, 14. 12. BDSL, 1:52–55; Lund 1956, 170. 13. Thwing 1911, 245–46. 14. Yang Jizhang 1994, 31; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 125. 15. In 1898 the university had a translation bureau; most students were from Hong Kong and most instructors were from Shanghai’s Xujiahui Academy (Hao Ping 1998, 279–80). 16. On the textbooks, see Hao Ping 1998, 215–19; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 67–74. 17. Beginning in fall 1902, books were sent to the university from the Guangya Academy in Guangzhou and from officials in Hunan and Zhejiang (Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 17). 18. BDSL, 1:52–55. 19. According to Martin, Zhang fired the foreigners for demanding back pay for the period when the university had been closed. Zhang eventually agreed to pay the sums requested by the foreign faculty, as well as three thousand taels to the widow of Professor James, the man killed by the Boxers (see Martin 1902, 143–44; Lund 1956, 159–63). Chen Pingyuan 1998b (111) suggests that Zhang fired Martin because the American was domineering. 20. Guan Xiaohong 1998, 98–99; Wang Zhenyuan 1991, 140. 21. Huters 1988, 248. 22. Chow Kai-wing 1994, 186; Guy 1987, 142. 23. Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 6; Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 122. 24. According to Chow Kai-wing (1994, 184), Yao Nai, a devotee of Song Learning, “invented” the Tongcheng School in the 1770s after becoming frustrated with the dominant position held by Han Learning scholars employed on the Four Treasuries (Siku quanshu) encyclopedia project. Yao’s literary and philosophical approach “formed a rallying point for those dissatisfied with the political and intellectual trends of the times” (Guy 1987, 123, 140–56). His success was owing to the fact that “the Tongcheng School was aptly prepared to take advantage of the sea-change in mentality that began sometime around the death of the emperor Gaozong in 1799.” The political and social decline that set in toward the end of the Qianlong reign generated concern about the scholarly community’s failure to provide moral leadership and an increasing sense that philological research had descended into “scholarship-for-scholarship’s sake” (Huters 1987, 68). 25. Zeng openly acknowledged Yao Nai’s influence on his own writing,

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though he did not agree with the Tongcheng School on every point. On the syncretic nature of late-Qing classical studies, see Keenan 1994. 26. Liu Kwang-Ching 1994, 84–85; Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 5, 11; Qu Xingui and Tong Fuyong 1997, 442; Borthwick 1983, 60; Lund 1956, 303–4. 27. Huters 1988, 249–50. Zhang Baixi had difficulty persuading Wu to accept the position. Wu was distraught over the recent death of Li Hongzhang and the reactionary drift in the capital. Only after Zhang courted him tirelessly and other reform-minded scholars, including Yan Fu and Liang Qichao, urged him to accept the position did Wu agree to Zhang Baixi’s request. The turning point apparently came when Zeng Guofan’s grandson, Zeng Guangrong, whom Zhang Baixi had hired at the Jingshi daxuetang, lent his name to the cause (Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 6–8; Zhang Jiqian 1998, 14). 28. Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 6–12; Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 102–3; Harrell 1992, 35–43, 115–18; Reynolds 1993, 73–78, 139–40; Qu Xingui and Tong Fuyong 1997, 430–35. 29. Zhang Jiqian 1998, 15; Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 9; Wang Zhenyuan 1991, 144–45. 30. Lin did not identify himself as belonging to the Tongcheng School, but his close ties to Wu Rulun, Ma Qichang, and the Yao brothers gave many the impression that he was a member. Wu was, in fact, highly critical of Lin’s ancient prose (Luo Zhitian 1995, 118, 124; Chen Yi-ai 1999, 19; Huters 1988, 252, 261). 31. Chen Yi-ai 1999, 20. 32. Harrell 1992, ch. 5; Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 10. 33. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 20. In the eighteenth century the Yanghu School was a rival of the Tongcheng School. Because the two shared many ideals, however, the Yanghu School is often regarded as an offshoot of the Tongcheng School (Nienhauser 1986, 498, 501). 34. In addition to being one of Japan’s foremost Sinologists, Hattori was deeply connected to the West, having studied at Berlin University. In later life Hattori taught at Harvard and was an organizer of the China research center that served as the predecessor of the Toyo, Bunka Kenkyujo at Tokyo University (Harrell 1998; Reynolds 1993, 81, 228; Ou Yuanfang and Weng Fei 1998, 15). On Japanese who taught science at the Jingshi daxuetang, see Bastid-Bruguière 1998, 51. 35. Harrell 1998, 1–5. 36. In 1901 Zhang Zongxiang wrote Riben youxue zhinan (Guide to Study in Japan) to encourage study in Japan (Reynolds 1993, 63). On Fan Yuanlian, see Wang Daoyuan 1998, 19. 37. Harrell 1998, 1; Ono 1989, 56–60. 38. Hattori 1904, 105. For Japanese professors at the university, see Hao Ping 1998, 226, 319–20. 39. Harrell 1993, 9, 80–87; 1998, 7. The quotation is from Grieder 1981, 145. 40. BDSL, 1:55–56. 41. “Qinding Jingshi daxuetang zhangcheng,” in BDSL, 1:96.


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42. Wu Rulun stated that Hattori Unokichi had told him that such courses existed not only in Japan but also in Germany (see Qu Xingui and Tong Fuyong 1997, 433). 43. On the curricula, see Weston 2002. 44. The opening of the regular university was to be delayed for three years (it actually took longer); by then the first preparatory class graduates would be ready to enroll. On the regular university, see BDSL, 1:87–97. 45. On the examination process, see Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 20–21; Hao Ping 1998, 261–64; Wang Xuezhen et al. 1998, 1:7–9. 46. Jingshi daxuetang tongxuelu 1903; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 81–82, 167–73; Wang Huachu 1998, 12; Wang Daoyuan 1998, 15; Sang Bing 1995, 295–96. 47. BDSL, 1:56–57. 48. Yu Tongkui 1998, 22; Wang Daoyuan 1998, 18; BDSL, 1:94, 96; Jingshi daxuetang tongxuelu 1906(?). 49. BDSL, 1:216. 50. Wang Huachu 1998, 12; BDSL, 1:224–29, 238. 51. BDSL, 1:227; Saari 1990, ch. 2, esp. 62–64; Sang Bing 1995, 131–32. 52. Yu Tongkui 1998, 25; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 30; Hu Xiansu 1998, 18. On the lifestyle of Tongwen Guan students, see Sang Bing 1995, 49. 53. Zou Shuwen 1998, 5, 7; Hu Xiansu 1998, 18; Hao Ping 1998, 226–27; Yu Tongkui 1998, 26. See also Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 220, 373. 54. Wang Daoyuan 1998, 18; Luo Dunyong 1913, 5; Shen Yinmo 1998, 167; Mao Dun 1998, 208. 55. Zou Shuwen 1998, 4. 56. “Ji Beijing daxuetang shi,” Xinmin congbao 38/39, jishi section; Hao Ping 1998, 268. 57. Wang Huachu 1998, 12; Wang Daoyuan 1998, 19; Luo Dunyong 1913, 3–4; Yu Tongkui 1998, 23–24. 58. Thwing 1911, 246; Wang Xuezhen et al. 1998, 1:8. 59. Yu Tongkui 1998, 25–26. 60. Luo Dunyong 1913, 3–4. 61. Yu Tongkui 1998, 24–25. 62. “Li di daxue,” Xinmin congbao 23, zhongguo jishi section; Sang Bing 1995, 83; Guan Xiaohong 1998, 97. 63. “Tongku zhongguo xuewu zhi qiantu,” Xinmin congbao 27, jiaoyu shiping section; Guan Xiaohong 1998, 107. 64. Russia established what it promised would be a temporary military presence in Manchuria during the Boxer uprising. However, in spring 1903, instead of complying with a 1902 treaty stipulating a three-stage process of withdrawal, Russia made clear that it intended to further develop its position in Manchuria. 65. Harrell 1992, ch. 6 (Tang Erhe’s statement appears on p. 135); Rankin 1971, 73–77; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 112. 66. Yang Tianshi and Wang Xuezhuang 1979, 152–55. 67. Ibid., 145, 152–55. 68. Ibid., 146–49. 69. Yu Tongkui 1998, 24; Wang Daoyuan 1998, 20; Lee 1985, 196.

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70. Yang Tianshi and Wang Xuezhuang 1979, 152–55, 162. See also Bays 1978, 143; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 30. 71. Wang Daoyuan 1998, 20; Kuhn 1995, 299; Yang Tianshi and Wang Xuezhuang 1979, 268–69. 72. Yang Tianshi and Wang Xuezhuang 1979, 269–70. 73. Ibid., 271–72. 74. Ibid., 271; Sang Bing 1995, 86–87, 115. 75. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 30–31. 76. Yu Tongkui 1998, 24; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 24. Students were not supposed to be sent abroad until they graduated, but Zhang Baixi supported those who wanted to leave early. In December 1903, thirty-one were sent to Japan and sixteen to Europe. For the students and the countries to which they were sent, see BDSL, 1:441. 77. Zhang Ji 1979. 78. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 31–32; Sang Bing 1995, 4–5, 127, 232–35, 242. 79. Reynolds 1993, 139–48. 80. Elman 2000, 586. 81. Ayers 1971, 231; see also Reynolds 1993, 141–48. 82. BDSL, 1:125, 229–45. On guarantors for examination candidates, see Miyazaki 1976, 19. 83. The Department of Classics offered courses on the Book of Changes, the Book of History, the Book of Odes, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Zuo zhuan commentary and other commentaries on the Annals, the Zhou Book of Rites, the Confucian Analects, the works of Mencius, and the writings of the natural philosophers (BDSL, 1:98–101). 84. In his 1902 regulations Zhang Baixi made passing reference to graduate training but did not develop the idea. On the 1904 graduate program, see BDSL, 1:127–28. 85. Thereafter, the highest-ranking official at the university was the rector, or zong jiandu. 86. Elman argues that by ending the examination system the Qing “unwittingly” brought about “its own delegitimation,” because the result was to sacrifice one of the Manchus’ “most loyal, if recalcitrant, constituencies, the examination candidates” (Elman 2000, 586–87). 87. Keenan 1994, ch. 5; Borthwick 1983, 78, 86 (quotation is from Borthwick). 88. Hattori 1904, 98–99. 89. Marshall 1994, 53. 90. Fitzgerald 1996, 56. 91. BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxuezhi chugao, vol. 2; BDSL, 1:291; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 107; Borthwick 1983, 138–39. 92. Wu Wosheng, “Jingshi daxuetang yundonghui ji,” Dagong bao, May 3–6, 1906; Sang Bing 1995, 421–23. 93. Anderson, “Physical Culture In China” (1915), Luther Anderson Papers, Yale University Library—Manuscripts and Archives. 94. Sang Bing 1995, 294–96.


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95. Cai Yuanpei 1998, 36. 96. Chen Yixian 1998, 29, 31. 97. Shen Yinmo 1998, 167; Borthwick 1983, 84. 98. Sang Bing 1995, 206–7. These numbers apply to the years 1903–1906. 99. BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxuezhi chugao, vol. 2; CYPQJ, 3:380. 100. Yu Tongkui 1998, 25–26. 101. BDSL, 1:243; Zhuang Jifa 1970, 105; BUSA, Shiliao gao, vol. 2: xiaozhi di 2 qi gao, di 4 ce; Hu Xiansu 1998, 26. 102. Hu Xiansu 1998, 26; “Suzhe xuesheng zhi ji’ang,” BUSA, Shiliao gao, vol. 2: xiaozhi di 2 qi gao, di 4 ce; BDSL, 1:580–81; Anderson, “Physical Culture in China” (1915), Luther Anderson Papers, Yale University Library—Manuscripts and Archives; Yang Shijing, “Qian Jingshi Daxue tang geming yundong zhi fuliu ji qi shuguang,” n.d., Hoover Library, Stanford University. 103. Zhuang Jifa 1970, 31. On the university’s foreign study program, see BDSL, 1:440–49. 104. Bailey 1990, 103. 105. Zou Shuwen 1998, 9; Lin Shu 1998; Hu Xiansu 1998, 20–21. 106. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 15; for a photograph of a diploma, see BDSL, 1: front matter. 107. BDSL, 1:390, 393–96. 108. Among those who attended the university and later became influential within political circles were Chen Qi’ai, an official in Beijing after the 1911 Revolution; Fu Dingyi, a legislator in the late 1910s and a cabinet member in the 1920s; Gu Zhongxiu, a member of the House of Representatives; Li Sihao, a key figure in the Anfu Clique; Liang Hongzhi, another key figure in the Anfu Clique, Duan Qirui’s personal secretary, and later the head of the “Reform Government” in Nanjing under the Japanese; Wu Jinglian, a Speaker of the House of Representatives and a close colleague of Liang Qichao’s in the Research Clique; Xu Shitong, who held top government positions when his brother, Xu Shichang, was President of the Republic; Yao Guozhen, a member of the Anfu Clique and an official in the Ministry of Communications; Ye Gongzhuo, a key figure in the Communications Clique; Zhang Yaoceng, a leading figure in the Constitutional Protection Movement and a member of Duan Qirui’s first cabinet; and Zhu Shen, a member of the Anfu Clique and a high official in the Beijing police force from 1925. 109. See BDSL, 1:384–89, 396–403, for the names and ranks of the graduates. For the graduation speech, see Yu Changlin, “Daxuetang shifan yuke biye gao zhusheng wen” (1908), in BUSA. This speech is dated 1908 though the graduation took place in 1909; I assume the date is in error. 110. Hu Xiansu 1998, 27. I conclude that Zhang’s visit occurred just months before his death because Hu Xiansu entered the university shortly before the elder statesman died. 111 BDSL, 1:142; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 26. 112. For example, He Jushi, dean of engineering, was among the first Chinese to receive a Ph.D. from a Japanese university (Tokyo Imperial University); the dean of classics, Ke Shaomin, spent years in Japan studying the educational system; Lin Qi, dean of law and politics, had a degree from Waseda University;

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Luo Zhenyu, dean of agriculture, had been on an investigative tour of Japanese schools and in 1901 founded Jiaoyu shijie (Educational World), the first Chinese journal devoted entirely to education; and Wang Fengzao, dean of the natural sciences, served as ambassador to Japan from 1892 to 1894. 113. Quoted in Thwing 1911, 259. 114. Bays 1978, 198. 115. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 20–21; Yang Jizhang 1994, 28–29, 31–32, 116–17; Hu Xiansu 1998, 19, 23.

chapter 3: instability and redefinition in the wake of the 1911 revolution 1. Reynolds 1993, 1, 197. 2. Cai Jianguo 1997, 96–97; Wang Jianhui, “Zhongguo xiandai xueshu wenhua de shuangzi xingzuo—Beijing daxue yu Shangwu yinshuguan,” BDXB 36:2, 78–79; Gao 1992, 567. 3. Shils 1997, 39, 46. 4. Rudy 1984, 130; Fallon 1980, 51–52. 5. Duiker 1977, ch. 3. On Paulsen’s influence in China, see Wakeman 1973, 167–206. 6. CYPQJ, 2:130–37; for an English translation, see Teng and Fairbank 1982, 235–38. 7. The “citizens’ morality” (gongmin daode) that Cai advocated was explicitly grounded in the French Revolution ideals of “liberty, fraternity, and equality” (CYPQJ, 2:131). 8. Teng and Fairbank 1982, 237; see also Duiker 1977, 28–30. 9. Ringer 1990, 86–87. Joseph Levenson noted the similarity between the concept of bildung, which he called “an intellectualized conception of aristocracy,” and the “amateur ideal” of late-imperial Chinese literati, who possessed “an aristocratic pride of their own” (Levenson 1968, 2:46–48). 10. Quotation from Craig 1978, 193; see also Luo Jialun 1981, 17. 11. McClelland 1980, 124–25. 12. Shils 1997, 13–14. 13. None of those universities were founded, however. 14. “Daxuexiao kaixue zhiwen,” JYZ 4, no. 4 (1912): jishi section. 15. Zhou Kangbian 1980, 297. 16. CYPQJ, 6:198. 17. Ibid., 3:296. 18. Schwarcz 1986, 43; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 37–38. 19. Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 127–30. 20. On Yan’s support for Yuan, see Schwartz 1964, 214–15, 222–23; on his break with Sun, see Zhang Jiqian 1988, 17. 21. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 23–26. I borrow the first line of this translation from Schwarcz 1986, 44. 22. For a fuller discussion, see Xiao Chaoran 1995, 23, 26; Zhang Jiqian 1988, 20–23.


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23. Zhang Jiqian 1988, 22–23; “Yan Fu ci Beijing daxuexiao xiaozhang zhi,” BUSA, Guoli beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3, October 7, 1912. 24. Zhang Jiqian 1988, 23; “Jiaoyubu gongbu xuexiao zhengshou xuefei guicheng ling,” JYZ 4, no. 9 (1912): faling section. 25. “Fenke daxue jinqing,” JYZ 4, no. 7 (1912): jishi section. 26. Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 132–33. 27. Dong Hongyi, a secretary in the Ministry of Education, used Yan Fu’s opium habit as a pretext for firing him. But according to Shen Yinmo 1998, Yan was dismissed for refusing to hand over stock notes from the Eastern Qing Railroad to the Ministry of Education. Apparently, Yan obtained a loan to start up the university on collateral that he had in the form of stock notes from the Eastern Qing Railroad, which he received from a university official (Shen Yinmo 1998, 165–66). 28. Tao Yinghui 1976a, 472; Cai Shangsi 1986, 62. 29. When in Scotland, Zhang published articles on the English constitution and on the Qing political reforms in the revolutionary newspaper Diguo ribao (Imperial Daily) (Price 1990, 229–41). 30. On Zhang’s reputation as a master prose stylist, see Hu Shi 1929, 61–67. 31. After 1911 the Revolutionary Alliance split into factions, some of which founded separate parties. Some people belonged to more than one party at a time (Li Chien-nung 1978, 277; Yu 1966, 64–84). 32. Li Miaogen 1996, 61; Liu Guisheng n.d., 2000. 33. Because Zhang’s wife, Wu Ruonan, was the daughter of Yuan Shikai’s adoptive father and mentor, General Wu Changqing, Yuan referred to Zhang as his family member. When Zhang refused a bureaucratic office, Yuan offered him the Beida post instead (Wang Jie and Guo Tingjun 1991, 155; Liang Shuming 1988, 110). Wu Ruonan studied at the Patriotic Girls’ School in Shanghai and in Japan, where she joined the Revolutionary Alliance. Zhang Taiyan introduced her to Zhang Shizhao, with whom she went to England in 1908. Zhang and Wu’s marriage ended in divorce (Zhang Hanzhi 1994, 8–9). 34. “Jingshi daxue zhi fengchao,” JYZ 4, no. 8, jishi section; “Daxuexiao fengchao zhi rilie,” Dagong bao, October 9, 1912, Beijing section; “Daxue fengchao,” Minli bao, June 6, 1913. See also Gao Pingshu 1996–98, 1:433–34. 35. See “Yan Fu ci Beijing daxuexiao xiaozhang zhi,” in BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxue chugao, vol. 3. 36. Wang Shiru 1998, 28–29; Liang Shuming 1988, 110. 37. “Jingshi daxue xiaozhang cizhi,” JYZ 4, no. 9 (1912): jishi section. 38. “Ma Liang jiu Beijing daxuexiao xiaozhang zhi,” in BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (October 21, 1912). 39. Ding Wenjiang 1958, 407. 40. Liang Qichao 1998, 41–42. 41. Ibid., 43–44. 42. Ibid., 44–45. 43. On student unrest during this period, see the jishi section in Jiaoyu zazhi for the years 1912 and 1913, especially vol. 4, no. 3; vol. 4, no. 8; vol. 4, no. 11; and vol. 5, no. 4.

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44. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 26. Ma offered the university’s property as collateral on a loan of 400,000 francs from a Belgian bank. He was forced to do this because the Ministry of Finance had yet to pay school officials money they needed in order to conduct classes the following semester. 45. In 1898 He Jushi was one of eight students from Zhejiang who were sent to study in Japan, where he stayed for eight years. He completed courses in mineralogy at Tokyo Imperial University in 1905 and was one of the first Chinese to receive a bachelor’s degree from a Japanese university (He Rongmu and Tang Shiyi, “Biography of Mr. He Xiehou [Jushi]: The Former President of Beijing University,” translated by Alice C. Tang, East Asian Library, University of California at Berkeley; originally published in Chinese in Renwu 6 [1985]). 46. “The Beginnings of Democracy in China” (1911), Luther Anderson Papers, Yale University Library—Manuscripts and Archives, Group Number 36, box no. 1, folder no. 7. 47. “The Officials of Republican China” (May 14, 1912), Luther Anderson Papers, Yale University Library—Manuscripts and Archives, Group Number 36, box no. 1, folder no. 7. 48. “China’s First Independence Day” (October 14, 1912), Luther Anderson Papers, Yale University Library—Manuscripts and Archives, Group Number 36, box no. 1, folder no. 7. 49. Li Miaogen 1996, 88–90. 50. “Jiaoyubu tongzhi gexiao xuesheng, bu de jianren xingzhengguan ji qita zhiguan” (January 16, 1913); and “Daxuexiao bugao weidaoxiao bei chuming zhi xuesheng” (January 15, 1913), both in BUSA, Shiliao gao section. 51. BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (May 27, 1913; May 28, 1913). 52. Hu Renyuan, a native of Wuxing County in Zhejiang, earned the juren degree in 1902 before studying at Nanyang College and at the Jingshi daxuetang. He earned a master’s degree in engineering in England, after which he began teaching at the Jingshi daxuetang. Xia Yuanli, a Hangzhou native, earned a doctoral degree from Berlin University and began teaching at Beida in 1912. 53. Dong Hongyi was no stranger to disruptive student activism. In the winter of 1902, while studying in Tokyo, he was involved in anti-Manchu activities and helped found the influential Youth Society (Qingnian hui), whose members championed the idea of “destruction-ism” (pohuai zhuyi). On the decision to expel the eight students, see “Daxuexiao fengchao,” Minli bao, June 4, 1913. 54. “Daxuexiao fengchao,” Minli bao, June 5, 1913. 55. See “Daxuexiao fengchao,” Minli bao, June 5, 1913; “Daxuexiao fengchao ji,” Minli bao, June 9, 1913; see also “Beijing daxue yuke zhi fengchao,” Zhonghua jiaoyujie 1, no. 6 (1913). 56. “Zhuzhong deyu zhengchi xuefeng ling,” in Shu Xincheng 1961, 3:1069. 57. See “Daxuexiao fengchao,” Minli bao, June 6, 1913; “Daxuexiao fengchao ji,” Minli bao, June 9, June 13, 1913. In response to the unrest, members of parliament conducted an inquiry (see “Canyiyuan zhiwenshu” and “Daxuexiao xuesheng bo zhengfu dafa canyiyuan zhiwenshu tonggao,” Minli bao, June 20, 1913 and July 3–4, 1913, respectively). 58. “Daxuexiao fengchao ji,” Minli bao, June 9, 1913.


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59. See “Daxuexiao fengbu ling jiesan yuke xuesheng,” BUSA, Guoli beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (June 6, 1913). 60. BUSA, Guoli beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (July 1, 1913). 61. See Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 47. 62. The merger plan grew out of the Ministry’s desire to avoid the duplication of expenses (Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 41; and “Guoli daxue hebin wenti,” Zhonghua jiaoyujie, December 1913). 63. He Jushi’s letter to Yuan Shikai is in Zhonghua jiaoyujie, November 1913, jishi section, 75–76. 64. See BUSA, Guoli beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (October 13, 20, 1913). 65. The main organizer of the Discussion Group was Li Genyuan, former chair of the Guomindang Parliamentarians’ Club and, after the Second Revolution, a student at Tokyo’s Waseda University. Zhang Shizhao was the group’s secretary. Other members included military men with close connections to Huang Xing, such as Li Liejun and Chen Jiongming, and former assemblymen such as Gu Zhongxiu, Zhang Yaoceng, and Peng Yunyi, all of whom had opposed the Second Revolution. Chen Duxiu and Zhang Dongsun were also members, and Cai Yuanpei, Wang Jingwei, Zhang Ji, and Wu Zhihui, who were living in Europe at the time, were listed as members as of 1915 (see Zhu Jianhua 1990, 365; Jiang Yongjing 1986, 305–8; Wang Jie and Guo Tingjun 1991, 157; Li Ximi 1991, 372). 66. Jiang Yongjing 1986, 312–14. 67. The journal’s nickname came about because 1914, the jiayin year, was the year of the tiger on the lunar calendar. Huang Xing’s group provided critical funding for Tiger Magazine, which quickly acquired a reputation for being the official organ of the Discussion Group for European Affairs, as well as Huang Xing’s personal mouthpiece (Zhang Shizhao 1961, 265; Wang Jie and Guo Tingjun 1991, 157; Li Longmu 1990, 11). 68. Schoppa 1995, 5. 69. The journal ran from May 1914 to October 1915, with a six-month cessation between November 1914 and May 1915. The first five issues were published in Tokyo; thereafter, though Zhang Shizhao remained in Japan, he assigned publishing and distribution responsibilities to Wang Mengzou, whose East Asia Book Company (Yadong tushuguan) was based in Shanghai (Wang Yuanfang 1983, 28). 70. Shen Songqiao 1986, 186; Price 1990, 245; 1997, 154–58. 71. Weston 1998. 72. Yue Shengyang 1989, 111. 73. Wang Yuanfang 1983, 29; Wang Jie and Guo Tingjun 1991, 157; Shen Songqiao 1986, 186; Chang Naide 1971, 180. 74. In September 1915 Zhang Shizhao published “Refuting the Emperor System,” a scathing attack on Yuan Shikai’s bid to become emperor. In response, Yuan issued a warrant for his arrest and ordered that all future issues of Tiger Magazine be interdicted at the post office (Wang Yuanfang 1983, 29). 75. Wang Yuanfang 1983, 29–30, 32. 76. Harrison 2001, 140.

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77. However, a report filed in October 1915 made clear that Beida’s funding was still woefully inadequate and in real terms had actually decreased since the final year of the Qing dynasty. The university’s budget grew in the early Republic not because the central government provided more money but because Beida began to require students to pay tuition and because the student enrollment grew quickly. Also, the university began charging students to take the entrance examination (Wu Xiangxiang and Liu Shaotang 1971, 1:243; “Beijing daxue fenke ji yuke zhounian gaikuang baogaoshu,” Jiaoyu gongbao 2, no. 9, 5–32). 78. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 42. 79. According to a 1914 student roster, there were 376 students enrolled in the undergraduate college and 534 enrolled in the preparatory college (Beijing daxue minguo sannian tongxuelu, n.d.; see also Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 47–48; and “Beijing daxue fenke ji yuke zhounian gaikuang baogaoshu,” Jiaoyu gongbao 2, no. 9, 5–32). 80. The percentage of students in the preparatory college who were from the same six provinces was far smaller, however; only 189 of 534 students came from coastal provinces. These figures are derived from Beijing daxue minguo sannian tongxuelu, n.d. 81. Gu 1995, 125. 82. Ouyang Zhesheng, “Fu Sinian yu Beijing daxue,” BDXB 33:5, 42; Tao Xisheng 1998b, 46; “Beijing daxue fenke ji yuke zhounian gaikuang baogao shu,” Jiaoyu gongbao 2, no. 9, 16; Gamble 1921, 38. 83. Cai Yuanpei 1998, 36–37. 84. Gu 1995, 125. 85. There were 103 students in humanities, 78 in engineering, and only 30 in the natural sciences. As of December 1917, 841 students were enrolled in the law division, 418 in the humanities, and 422 in the natural sciences (Beijing daxue minguo sannian tongxuelu, n.d.; Wu Xiangxiang and Liu Shaotang 1971, 1:232). 86. “Beijing daxue zhi xiaozhang wenti,” Minli bao, December 12, 1912. Because so few students were willing to study humanities, Beida officials reversed their previous decision, allowing those who had not graduated from a preparatory college to enroll in the humanities department (Geng Shen et al. 1991, 70). Where there was higher demand, however, the standards remained stricter (Feng Youlan 1981, 142). 87. Feng Youlan 1984, 142. 88. “Beijing daxuexiao zhi yange” 1917. 89. Shen Yinmo 1998, 167. 90. Professors in the preparatory college earned between 140 and 240 yuan a month. Professors in both colleges who had been at the university for five years earned a hefty bonus—those in the undergraduate college were given an extra 600 yuan, while those in the preparatory college were given an extra 400. The chancellor was paid 400 yuan monthly, and the deans of both colleges 300 (“Jiaoyubu gongbu zhixia zhuanmen yishang xuexiao zhiyuan xinfeng zanxing guizheng,” JYZ 6, no. 5: faling section, 9–11). 91. It was common for wealthy students to partake of this lifestyle (Gu 1995,


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125). For other derogatory terms used to describe the university, see CYPQJ, 3:127–28. 92. Xu Deheng, “Wusi qian de Beida,” WSHYL, 1:228. 93. “Beijing liang xuetang zhi guaizhuang” 1915. 94. “Daxuexiao nicheng zhengdun daxuexiao jihua shu,” BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (September 8, 1914). 95. Foreigners accounted for 20 percent of the faculty in the undergraduate college. On those professors and the foreign faculty in the preparatory college, see Beijing daxue minguo sannian tongxuelu n.d., 5–12. 96. Shen Yinmo 1998, 167; Yang Lianggong 1981, 268; 1998, 267; Mao Dun 1988, 208. 97. The curriculum stressed foreign language study, especially English, French, and German (Beijing daxue minguo sannian tongxuelu n.d., 47–94; Chen Guyuan 1998, 24. 98. Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 10. 99. Mao Dun 1998, 209; Chen Guyuan 1998, 221. 100. Tao Xisheng 1998a, 258; Ouyang 1996, 40. Xu Chongqin 1998 (33) mentions Huanxue jikan, which is probably the same journal that Ouyang calls Quanxue. 101. Tao Xisheng 1998a, 261. 102. Gu 1998, 215–19. 103. “Beijing liang xuetang zhi guaizhuang” 1915; Gu 1998, 215–19; Tao Xisheng 1998a, 193–95. 104. The “National Essence” movement was intimately bound up with the revolutionary cause, and was aimed at keeping Han (as opposed to Manchu) culture alive (Schneider 1976; Furth 1976). A number of Zhang Taiyan’s disciples, including Qian Xuantong, Zhou Zuoren, Lu Xun, and Zhu Xizu were involved in the movement while studying in Tokyo (Qian 1990, 140–42). On the threat Tongcheng scholars felt from Zhang Taiyan and his disciples, see Kong Qingmao 1998, 169–73. 105. See Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 48; Chen Pingyuan 1998b, 8. 106. Chen Pingyuan 1998b, 7. 107. See Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 48. 108. Chen Yi-ai 1999, 52; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 423. 109. He Jushi first approached Shen in spring 1912; he knew of Shen through his co-provincial Xu Bingkun. All three men were from Zhejiang (Shen Yinmo 1998, 165; Beijing daxue minguo sannian tongxuelu n.d., 16). 110. Huters 1988, 252, 254. 111. Kong Qingmao 1998, 171; Luo Zhitian 1995, 123; Chen Pingyuan 1998b, 8–9. 112. Lin Shu, Ma Qichang, and Yao Yonggai accepted positions at Beijing’s Zhengzhi Middle School, which Xu Shuzheng, a top assistant to Duan Qirui, established in Beijing (Wang Zhenyuan 1991, 156). 113. Tao Xisheng 1998a, 259; Gu 1998, 219–22; Mao Dun 1998, 209; Feng Youlan 1984, 320. 114. Tao Xisheng 1998a, 259; Shen Yongbao 1997, 23; Zhou Zuoren 1998a, 109–10; Qian 1990, 199.

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115. Shen Yinmo 1998, 167; Shen Yongbao 1997, 39–40. 116. Wu Benxing 1990, 3. 117. Qian Liqun 1991, 277. 118. Wu Benxing 1990, 7. Zhang spent three years in prison for his role in the “Subao Case.” 119. Qian Liqun 1991, 277. 120. Shimada 1990, 29–30. 121. Zhang supported Yuan Shikai until Song Jiaoren was assassinated. 122. Wong 1989, 113–14; Qian 1991, 279; Wu Benxing 1990, 92; Boorman 1967, 1:446. 123. Goodnow 1916, 1; Young 1977, ch. 6. 124. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 43; letter, Luther Anderson to Mr. Charles H. Dennis, Managing Editor, Foreign Department, Chicago Daily News, February 19, 1912, Luther Anderson Papers, Yale University Library—Manuscripts and Archives, Group Number 36, box no. 1, folder no. 7. 125. Boorman 1967, 1:446; Yang Lianggong 1981, 275–76. 126. Feng Youlan 1984, front matter. 127. BUSA, Guoli Beijing daxue zhi chugao, vol. 3 (December 1, 1915).

chapter 4: between the old culture and the new 1. McCord 1993, 10–11, 309–11. 2. Zarrow 1997, 25. 3. Li Chien-nung 1978, 357. 4. Schoppa 1995, 254. Cai helped Ma stage an anti-Qing uprising in Zhejiang in 1911, spent time with Xia while studying in Berlin before 1911, and together with Chen founded the Society to Protect Zhejiang in 1898. 5. Shen Buzhou, a former dean of the preparatory college at Beijing University, represented another source of support for Cai Yuanpei within the Ministry of Education (Shen Yinmo 1998, 72–73; CYPQJ, 3:10). 6. With Li Shizeng, Wu Zhihui, and others, Cai founded the School for Chinese Workers (Huagong xuexiao) to offer education to Chinese workers who had been brought to France to work in wartime industries. For Cai’s lectures, see CYPQJ, 2:436–37, 422–23, 445–46, and 444–45, respectively. 7. Lin Wenzheng 1998, 411; Shen Yinmo 1998, 73. On warlords and intellectuals, see Pye 1971, 124, 155–60. 8. Liang Zhu 1983, 27. 9. Liang Zhu 1995, 16; Gao Pingshu 1996–98, 1:630; CYPQJ, 7:20–21. 10. Gu 1995, 126; Xinchao she 1920, 1:32–33; Leng Quanqing and Tang Xun 1984, 159. 11. CYPQJ, 3:5. 12. Ibid., 3:6 (my italics). On the relationship between ethics and action, also see Fitzgerald 1996, 35. 13. Ding Gang 1996, 219–33, esp. 223; see also Chen Pingyuan 1992, 11–12, 26; Keenan 1994, 145–46. 14. In 1918 Minister of Education Fan Yuanlian referred to Beida as


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“China’s only national university” (Zhongguo weyi zhi guoli daxue ye) (“Fan Jingsheng xiansheng yanshuo ci,” BDRK, vol. 1, January 5, 1918, 4). 15. Cai was a vegetarian from 1909 to 1921; he began eating meat again on the advice of a doctor (Gao Pingshu 1996–98, 1:344–45; see also Cai Jianguo 1997, 192–93; Feng Youlan 1984, 325). 16. Luo Jialun 1981, 17; Chen Qilu, “Ting Cai Jiemin xiansheng yanci ganyan,” XQN 2, no. 6 (1917); Dongfang zazhi, 14, no. 4 (1917). 17. Council members elected in March 1917 were Chen Hanzhang, Ma Xulun, Yu Tongkui, Qin Fen, Chen Jie, Tao Menghe, Wen Zongyu, Sun Shuilin, Zhang Xinglang, and Zhang Shanyang (“Zhiling Beijing daxue gai xiao pingyihui jianzhang ji huiyuan luli zhunbei anwen,” Jiaoyu gongbao 4, no. 6 (1917); Liang 1983, 34). 18. CYPQJ, 3:130–32; Liang Zhu 1983, 44; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 57; GBJNK, 3:42–62. 19. CYPQJ, 3:298. 20. Cai Yuanpei 1998, 38; Yang Lianggong 1998, 267; Tang Zhenchang 1985, 127; CYPQJ, 3:43–45, 56. 21. Liang Zhu 1995, 96–97. 22. CYPQJ, 3:48–51. 23. Zhou Zuoren 1970, 1:331. 24. Luo Zhitian 1995, esp. 121. 25. Shen Yinmo 1998, 172; Li Longmu 1990, 92; Wang Yuanfang 1983, 36; Tang Baolin and Lin Maosheng 1988, 76. 26. WSQK, 1:37; Zhang Guotao 1991, 1:39; Zhou Zuoren 1970, 1:333–34; Wang Yuanfang 1983, 33–36. 27. XQN 2, no. 6 (1917), tongxin section; see also Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 58. 28. On the Wenxuan School and its relationship to the Tongcheng School, see Huters 1987: 83–96; 1988: 254–58. 29. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 62; Zhou Zuoren 1998a, 105–6. 30. Shen Yinmo 1998, 174. 31. Gao Pingshu 1992, 571–72; Gao Pingshu 1996–98, 1:632; CYPQJ, 3:10, 26; Collins 1998, 647–48. 32. Many Zhengxuehui members had belonged to the Discussion Group for European Affairs. The society published New China (Zhonghua xinbao) (Han Yuchen 1990, 114–15). 33. Gao Yihan, “Huiyi wusi shiqi de Li Dazhao tongzhi,” WSHYL, 1:339; Li Dazhao wenji 1984, 1:255, 257; Li Longmu 1990, 116. 34. Shui Ru 1987, 78. In a letter to Wu Yu (Shui Ru 1987, 69), Chen Duxiu also solicited contributions to both The Tiger Daily and New Youth. 35. Shen Songqiao 1986, 192. 36. Li and Duan fought over the question of declaring war on Germany. After Li dismissed him, Duan threatened violence to force the National Assembly to declare war. Soon after, Zhang Xun drove Li from office and restored the Qing dynasty. By mid-July, though, Duan had vanquished both Li and Zhang. 37. CYPQJ, 3:57, 59.

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38. Zhang Guotao 1991: 1:38; Spence 1990, 287; Guoli Beijing daxue xiaoshilüe 1933, 8. 39. Zhou Zuoren 1970, 1:323. 40. Pu Yi 1990, 222–23. 41. Zhou Zuoren 1970, 1:319–29, esp. 323; Qian Liqun 1990, 193; Wu Benxing 1990, 12–13. 42. Pacific Ocean was published in Shanghai by the Far East Book Company (Taidong tushu ju) beginning in March 1917. In the inaugural issue Wu Zhihui noted that many people who had written for The Tiger were now involved with the new journal and that the two journals shared a spirit (WSQK, 3:333–45, 1023–40). 43. Li Dazhao wenji 1984, 499–512, 516–27 (quotation on p. 525); Meisner 1967, 34. See also Schoppa 1995, 26. 44. Chen Duxiu, “Fubi yu zunkong,” XQN 3, no. 6 (1917); Tang Baolin and Lin Maosheng 1988, 83. 45. Shen Weiwei 2000, 38. 46. Hu Shi 1992. 47. BUSA, “Beijing daxue wenke yilan,” quanzong hao, vol. 7; Gamble 1921, 133. 48. Hu 1970, 10; “Canyiyuan yuan zhongyang xuanjuhui diyi bu xuanju jiandu bugao” 1918. 49. Zhou Zuoren 1970, 2:351. 50. Collins 1998, 27. 51. At this time Beida employed ninety professors, ninety-four lecturers, and nine assistant professors. 52. Liang Zhu 1983, 79; Zhou Zuoren 1970, 2:352; Bai 1993, 107, 110. 53. Belsky 1997. 54. Tao Xisheng 1992, 485. 55. In winter 1917 the council members were Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Xia Yuanli, Wang Jianzu, Wen Zongyu, Hu Shi, Zhang Shizhao, Shen Yinmo, Zhou Sijing, Qin Fen, Yu Tongkui, Zhang Dachun, Hu Junji, Tao Menghe, Huang Zhensheng, Zhu Xiling, Han Shuzu, Sun Shuilin, and Chen Shizhang (GBJNK, 1:217). 56. Anderson 1991, 35; Gu Jiegang 1984, 45. 57. E.g., “Ben rikan san da guanggao” and “Ben rikan bianjibu qishi,” BDRK, vol. 1, February 1, 1918 and February 25, 1918, respectively. 58. Luo Zhanglong 1984, 22. 59. “Benxiao zhongyao jishi,” BDRK, vol. 1, February 8, 1918. 60. By late 1917, 148 students were enrolled in the graduate programs. The directors of those programs, all selected by Cai Yuanpei, were Hu Shi in philosophy; Shen Yinmo in Chinese literature; Huang Zhensheng in English literature; Qin Fen in mathematics; Zhang Dachun in physics; Yu Tongkui in chemistry; Huang Youchang in law; Chen Qixiu in political science; and Ma Yinchu in economics (GBJNK, 1:125, 218, 232). 61. For these announcements, which merely represent a sampling, see BDRK, vol. 1, May 20, 1918, 5; February 20, 1918, 1; May 13, 1918, 5; and December 1, 1917, 2, respectively.


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62. CYPQJ, 3:464. Jing Ziyuan, the principal of the First Normal School in Hangzhou, who was deeply influenced by his longtime friend Cai Yuanpei, also placed heavy emphasis on student self-governance (Yeh Wen-hsin 1996, 187–89). 63. Zarrow’s treatment of anarchism is compelling because he embraces the idea that newer concepts interacted with older ones rather than replacing them altogether (Zarrow 1990, 5–18). Dirlik agrees, but adds that “older conceptions and associations . . . acquired new meanings . . . so as to yield answers that had been foreclosed earlier” (Dirlik 1991, 61). 64. “Beijing daxue tongxue jianxuehui qi,” XQN 3, no. 4 (1917). 65. According to Zheng Peigang, a member, the Truth Society consisted of some dozen or so people (Zheng Peigang 1984, 950; see also Dirlik 1991, 14–15, 174; Zarrow 1990, 220–22). 66. WSST, 4:162. 67. BDRK, vol. 1, December 4, 1917, 2–3. On Esperanto at Beida, see Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 218. 68. Dirlik 1991, 149, 287. 69. Most Truth Society leaders left for Shanghai after only a few months in Beijing, having published just one issue of Freedom Record. The few selfdeclared anarchists who remained were a drop in the sea of the 1,600 Beida students (WSST, 4:179). Dirlik claims that two of the Society’s members, Huang Lingshuang and Yuan Zhenying, were professors at Beida, but my sources indicate that both were students (see Dirlik 1991, 172; Ge Maochun, Jiang Jun, and Li Xingzhi 1994, 1:350; Guoli Beijing daxue lijie tongxuelu 1948, 205). 70. CYPQJ, 3:30–34; Liang Zhu 1983, 122. 71. For Cai’s guidelines for the Music Society, see “Yinyuehui qishi,” BDRK, vol. 1, June 6, 1918, 2; see also Huang Xudong 1999, 557–61; Liang Zhu 1983, 123–24. 72. “Huafa zhi yanjiu,” “Shufa zhi yanjiu,” and “Yijing baoming ru huafa yanjiuhui zhujun xingming,” BDRK, vol. 1, December 4, 1917 and February 7, 1918; Liang Zhu 1983, 124–25. 73. “Benxiao yi she jingzuo hui,” “Beijing daxue jijihui jianzhang,” “Tiyuhui jishi yishu,” “Xiongbianhui kaihui,” and “Zhang Xingyan xiansheng li xiongbianhui yanshuo jiyao, BDRK, vol. 1, November 23, 1917, December 4, 1917, December 12, 1917, and December 20, 1917, respectively. 74. Schoppa 1995, 43; Su Jiarong 1918. On provincial association meetings, see BDRK, vol. 1, January 30, 1918, 4; February 7, 1918, 2, 4; and February 20, 1918, 2. On the importance of native-place ties among students, see, e.g., Chen Gongbo 1988, 24; Luo Zhanglong 1984, 49–56. On dialect differences, see “Jishi,” BDRK, vol. 1, January 16, 1918, 2; Feng Youlan 1984, 321; Tao Xisheng 1998a, 259; and Zhou Zuoren 1970, 2:352. 75. Zhang Guruo, personal interview. See also Tao Dun 1987, 151; and Beida Guangdong tongxianghui niankan 1923, huiwu jiwen section. 76. Goodman 1992; Schoppa 1995, 43, 45; Kang Baiqing 52; Beida Guangdong tongxianghui niankan 1923. 77. Xu Baohuang, “Sheli xuesheng yinhang zhi yichu you si,” BDRK, vol. 1,

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November 27, 1917. On student and faculty investments in the bank, see BDRK, vol. 1, February 1, 1918, 3–4; and February 2, 1918, 3–4. 78. “Shi ban xiaofei gongshe jianzhang,” BDRK, vol. 1, December 15, 1917. In an attached piece, Hu Qianzhi used the phrase “spirit of mutual aid” to describe the workings of the Consumers’ Union (see “Ni zai benxiao shi xiaofei gongshe yijian shu,” BDRK, vol. 1, December 15, 1917). Hu received a juren degree in 1902 and a law degree from Berlin University (Dirlik 1991, 184–85). 79. GBJNK, 1:23; BDRK, vol. 1, December 11, 16, 1917; Liang Zhu 1983, 87–88. 80. GBJNK, 1:23. 81. Ibid., 1:29–30. 82. Ibid., 1:27. Shang Quan assisted me with this translation. 83. Ibid., 1:30–32. 84. The texts of these speeches are collected in Ibid., 1:32–41. 85. Zhang Guotao 1991, 1:38–39. 86. “Fake xuezhang gaobai,” “Shuwu zhuren gaobai,” “Fake jiaowuchu zhi ge jiaoyuan han,” “Fake zhi fa yuben ke ge jiaoyuan han,” and “Jinzhi niming jietie,” BDRK, vol. 1, November 20, November 30, December 8, 1917, February 8, 1918, and December 19, 1917, respectively. See also Fu 1984, 79–80. 87. “Jishi,” BDRK, vol. 1, January 16, 1918, 2; and January 17, 1918, 1–3. 88. “Jishi,” BDRK, vol. 1, January 17, 1918, 1–3. 89. On those groups and their connection to anarchist thought, see Dirlik 1991, 120–21; Tao Yinghui 1976b, 243–44, 247–48. 90. CYPQJ, 3:127. 91. Liu Zongzhou had been Huang Zongxi’s teacher. He was a scholar with close ties to the Donglin Academy, who was known for his steadfast adherence to high ethical standards, and for committing suicide by fasting to demonstrate his loyalty to the fallen Ming dynasty. 92. Duiker 1977, 109; Chang Hao 1987, 73–74; Wakeman 1972, 41. 93. CYPQJ, 3:126. 94. CYPQJ, 3:125–26.

chapter 5: the insistent pull of politics 1. Tao Mingjun, “Jinde wuzhen” (translated by Zhou Zuoren), “Fei chang wenti zhi zhongxin renwu,” and “Jinde hui baogao,” BDRK, vol. 1, February 7, February 25, and March 21, 1918; CYPQJ, 3:172. In June 1918 the Society for the Promotion of Morality elected officers (see BDRK, vol. 1, June 3, 1918). 2. Wu Xi 1992, 42–43; Qin Wen, “Yi Shatan,” WSHYL, 1:1005. 3. Deng Yunxiang 1995, 371. 4. Tretiakov 1934, 249. For an excellent discussion of Beida’s physical space as it corresponded to the university’s cultural style, see Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 215–22. 5. “Zuzhi chengmei xuehui,” “Chengmei xuehui jinwen,” BDRK, vol. 1, February 25 and May 11, 1918, respectively; see also Huang Airen 1993, 212. 6. Yang Dongping 1994, 101–2. 7. “Wenke xuexhang gaobai,” BDRK, vol. 1, November 28, 1917, 1; Qin


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Wen, “Yi Shatan,” WSHYL, 1:1006; Mao Zedong 1998, 92; Liang Shuming 1998, 99–100. 8. “Ji diyi jisu shichai yi He Yizhuang diao jiaoyu chu shi” and “Cai xiaozhang fuhan,” BDRK, vol. 1, January 26, 1918, 2–3; see also Leng Quanqing and Tang Xun 1984, 158. 9. “Xiaozhang bugao,” “Yeyi yeban jiaoyuanhui buri chengli,” “Xiaozhang bugao,” and “Xiaoyi yeban kaixue xiangqing,” BDRK, vol. 1, March 21, March 25, March 26, and April 16, 1918, respectively. 10. In late imperial times hutoupai stood outside public offices to warn against disorder. 11. CYPQJ, 3:380–82. 12. In the 1910s intellectuals generally frowned on the vernacular (Link 1981, 101–2; Yang Dongping 1994, 90). 13. On this subject, also see Luo Zhitian 1995; Lin Yu-sheng 1979. 14. Wu Benxing 1990, 33–35; Shu Wu 1979, 51, 55–57; Luo Jialun 1989, 14; Luo Zhitian 1995, 125. 15. Li Dazhao Wenji 1984, 539. 16. Lee believes New Culture scorched-earth tactics “led inevitably to the radicalization of modern Chinese intellectuals,” which he laments (Lee 2001, 45, 61). 17. Bernal 1976, 111; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 2: 401–2; Hu Shi 1970, 9–14. 18. Xu Ruiyue 1990, 58, 63; Luo Jialun 1989, 14. 19. Schwarcz 1986, 63–64; Ouyang 1998, 72–73; Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 26–27; Chuan Dao, “Wusi huiyi,” WSHYL, 1:322; Zhang Guotao 1998, 324; Shen Weiwei 2000, 39–42. 20. Tian Jiongjin 1973, 44; Ma Zheng 1995, 208; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 1:380–84; Xiao Lao 357; Yang Zhensheng, “Huiyi wusi,” WSHYL, 1:261; Yang Lianggong 1981, 275; Liang Zhu 1995, 73. 21. Yang Lianggong 1981, 272; Shen Weiwei 2000, 43. The quotation is from Huters 1988, 258. 22. In July 1917 Duan Qirui convened a “Provisional National Assembly” instead of restoring the assembly that had been abolished before Zhang Xun’s restoration attempt. Outraged, Sun Yatsen joined with southern military leaders in a “constitutional protection movement,” resulting in the creation of a second parliament in Guangzhou. Anticipating a military conflict, Duan borrowed money from Japan to build up his military strength (Nathan 1976, 91–93; Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 77–83). 23. Xu Deheng 1998, 289; Liu Yongming 1990, 73; Beijing daxue lishixi 1988, 7; Yang Zhongjian 1998, 376; Luo Zhanglong 1984, 47–48. 24. “Benxiao quanti xuesheng wang fu qingyuan,” BDRK, vol. 1, May 22, 1918, 1–2; Zhang Guotao 1998, 325–26; Tao Xisheng 1970, 38; Xiao Chaoran 1995, 167. 25. “Benxiao xiaozhang ji ge ke xuezhang jueyi cizhi,” BDRK, vol. 1, May 23, 1918, 2. 26. Cai Yuanpei 1998, 39–40; “Xiaozhang xuezhang yi yun liuzhi,” BDRK, vol. 1, May 24, 1918, 2; Luo Jialun 1989, 16.

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27. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 168–69. 28. Chen Duxiu, “Jinri Zhongguo zhi zhengzhi wenti,” XQN 5, no. 1 (1918). 29. CYPQJ, 3:191–92; “Benxiao kaixue jishi,” BDRK, vol. 2, September 21, 1918, 3–4. 30. “Liang Shaowen jun shang xiaozhang shu,” BDRK, vol. 2, October 17, 1918, 3–4. 31. “Fake bugao” and “Wenke bugao,” BDRK, vol. 3, January 11–13, 1919 and March 29, 1919, respectively; Zhu Yi’e, “Xuexiao zuhezhi zhi shangque,” Guomin zazhi 1, no. 2 (1919). 32. CYPQJ, 3:210–12. 33. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 66; Luo Zhanglong 1984, 31. 34. Luo Jialun 1989, 15. 35. Fu Sinian, “Huiyi ‘Xinchao’ he ‘Xin qingnian,’ ” WSHYL, 2:171–72; Schwarcz 1986, 67–69. 36. Xu Deheng 1998, 289–90; WSQK, 1:467. 37. CYPQJ, 3:392–93. 38. Ibid., 3:215–18. 39. Li Dazhao, “Shumin de shengli,” and Tao Lugong, “Zhanzheng yihou de zhengzhi,” XQN 5, no. 5 (1918). 40. WSQK, 1:43; Miller 1997, 88–89; Luo Jialun 1989, 16. 41. Chen Duxiu, “Benzhi zui’an zhi dabian shu,” XQN 6, no. 1 (1919). 42. WSQK, 1:394. For a slightly different translation, see Schwarcz 1986, 67. 43. Schwarcz 1986, 67–127. 44. Evolution was published by the Evolution Society, an umbrella organization composed of three smaller anarchist societies (WSST, 4:181–92). 45. Fu Sinian, “Huiyi ‘Xinchao’ he ‘Xin qingnian,’ ” WSHYL, 2:173. 46. The Journalism Society offered a well-structured program (Lu Binliang 1980, 124–29; “Benxiao jiang she xinwenxue yanjiuhui,” BDRK, vol. 2, July 4, 1918, 3; Luo Zhanglong 1980, 119). For Cai’s speech at the opening ceremonies, see CYPQJ, 3:198–99. 47. Chen Yi-ai 1999, 41–43; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 2:425. 48. “Xinwen yanjiuhui chengli ji,” BDRK, vol. 2, October 16–17, 1918. For Liang Qichao’s statement, see Judge 1996, 4. 49. After Xu’s death in 1930, his book was reissued as Xinwenxue gangyao (Outline for the Study of Journalism); in a foreword to that edition Huang Tianpeng wrote that Xu was recognized as the founder of the journalism field in China (Xu Baohuang 1930, 5). 50. Wu Jialin 1991; Luo Zhanglong 1980, 121–22; Lu Binliang 1980, 127. 51. “Xinwen zhoukan fakan zhi mudi,” BDRK, vol. 3, April 21, 1919, 3. Xinwen zhoukan was the first periodical devoted to the subject of journalism in China and the first to print its text horizontally rather than in the vertical style. It ceased publication after only the third issue (Lu Binliang 1980, 128). 52. Xu Deheng 1998, 290; Xu Baohuang, “Xinwenzhi zhi shelun,” Guomin zazhi 1, no. 3 (1919); Zhi Xi, “Jinri Zhongguo zhi xinwen jie,” Xinchao 1, no. 1 (1919). 53. “Xinwen yanjiuhui zhi gaizu jishi,” BDRK, vol. 3, February 20, 1919,


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3–4; Chen Gongbo and Zhou Fohai 1988, 25. Cheng Shewo had been involved in journalism since 1916, when he worked as an editor for the Republican Times (Minguo ribao) in Shanghai. The following year, he founded the Shanghai Reporters’ Club (Shanghai jizhi julebu) and also worked for Pacific Ocean (Taiping yang). In 1918 he entered Beida’s literature department. 54. Luo Zhanglong 1980, 119; Fan Chunrong 1982, 33. On the Morning Post, see WSQK, 1:98–99. 55. On similar activities in Shanghai, see Wasserstrom 1991, 58–59. 56. “Pingmin jiaoyu jiangyantuan,” BDRK, vol. 3, March 7, 1919; Schwarcz 1986, 90. 57. “Qinlao yu zhishi,” BDRK, vol. 3, April 21–22, 1919. 58. WSST, 2:142–44. On “Beida-ifying” commoners, see “Pingmin jiaoyu jiangyantuan tonggao,” BDRK, vol. 3, June 17, 1920. For the comments about the Night School, see “Benxiao jishi,” BDRK, vol. 3, May 1, 1919. 59. Yang Zhensheng, “Huiyi wusi,” WSHYL, 2:260–61. For a similar point, see Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 217–18. 60. Chuan Dao, “Wusi huiyi,” WSHYL, 1:323. Another memoir that makes much the same point is Ma Yuancai 1982 (issue 578). 61. Bai 1993, 95, 106–7; Tian Jiongjin 1973, 44. 62. Gilmartin 1995, 47, 55; Wang Zhong 1999, 64–66; Qian Liqun 1991, 296; Luo Jialun 1989, 14; Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo zhonghua minguo shi yanjiu shi 1983, 2:290. 63. Schneider 1976, 72. 64. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 62–63; Chen Yi-ai 1999, 72; Luo Jialun 1989, 17; Ma Zheng 1995, 220; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 78; Liang Zhu 1995, 72. 65. Wusi shiqi de shetuan 1979, 2:69; Ouyang 1998, 71. 66. Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 26; see also Chen Yi-ai 1999, 68–98; Schwarcz 1986, 124–26. 67. Lin Shu’s stories, “Jingsheng the Giant” and “Nightmare,” are discussed in Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 66–67. For Lin’s letter to Cai Yuanpei, see CYPQJ, 3:272–75. 68. Zhang Houdai, a Beida student who served as Lin Shu’s informant, fanned the rumors. Following the publication of Lin’s stories, Zhang sent a letter to Shanghai’s Shenzhou ribao to report that several professors, including Hu Shi, Chen Duxiu, and Qian Xuantong, had been forced to resign. In response, Hu Shi wrote an open letter to Zhang Houdai criticizing him for spreading false rumors (Zhou Zuoren 1970, 2:353–54; Bai 1993, 122; “Hu Shi jiaoshou zhi ben rikan han,” BDRK, vol. 3, March 10, 1919, 4). 69. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 68–69; CYPQJ, 3:272–75. 70. Luo Zhitian 1995, 125–26. 71. I follow Chow Tse-tsung’s translation (p. 71); for the original, see CYPQJ, 3:267–72. 72. Zhou Zuoren 1970, 2:356. 73. Luo Jialun 1989, 16; Ye Shaojun (Shengtao), “Nüzi renge wenti,” New Tide 1, no. 2 (1919); Schwarcz 1986, 53; CYPQJ, 3:284–86; Kang Baiqing, “Daxue yi shou kai nü jin lun,” and Luo Jialun, “Daxue yingdang wei nüzi kaifang,” Chen bao fukan, May 6–10 and May 11, 1919, respectively.

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74. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo zhonghua minguo shi yanjiushi 1983, 2:290. Rumors about Chen’s conduct with prostitutes hounded him in 1920 and 1921 as well (Gilmartin 1995, 38). 75. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo zhonghua minguo shi yanjiushi 1983, 2:281–92; Liang Zhu 1995, 36–38. On criticism of Chen Duxiu from within Beida, see Xu Deheng 1998, 289; Liang Shuming 1998, 101. 76. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo zhonghua minguo shi yanjiushi 1983, 2:290. Hu accepted that Chen visited prostitutes but believed outsiders wishing to sabotage the new thought tide at Beida planted the rumors. 77. Ouyang 1998, 73; Shen Yinmo 1998, 174–75; Zhou Zuoren 1970, 2:361–62; Luo Jialun 1989, 14; Sang Bing 1999, 29. 78. Chen Duxiu, “Lin Shu de liusheng jiqi,” Meizhou pinglun, March 30, 1919. 79. “Jinggao shoujiu dang,” Meizhou pinglun, April 13, 1919. 80. Wang Yuanfang 1983, 46; Meizhou pinglun, April 13, 1919, 2–4; “Dui Beijing daxue de fenyan,” Meizhou pinglun, April 27, 1919. 81. Japanese and Korean numbers were far apart with regard to the number killed. 82. Wagner 2001, 82–95; Wasserstrom 1991 (ch. 3) argues persuasively that student activists also borrowed on earlier forms of protest and cultural scripts. 83. Wagner 2001, 69–82, 85; Yang Zhensheng, “Huiyi wusi,” WSHYL, 1:263; Xiao Chaoran 1995, 214. 84. Luo Jialun 1989, 17; Xiao Chaoran 1995, 174. 85. Wang Tongzhao, “Huiyi Beijing xuesheng wusi aiguo yundong,” WSHYL, 1:251–52. 86. “Xuesheng zhi xisheng,” Chen bao, May 8, 1919, p. 2; Xiao Chaoran 1995, 183–84. For an interesting discussion of the funeral for Guo Qinguang as a “scripted” event, see Wasserstrom 1991, 80–81. 87. Luo Jialun 1989, 19. 88. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 172. 89. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 135; CYPQJ, 3:296–97; Gu Jiegang 1995, 184; Lubot 1972, 76; Chen Qichao 1989; Liang Zhu 1995, 81. 90. Xiao Chaoran 1995, 215. 91. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 136; Tang Zhenchang 1985, 165; Zhou Tiandu 1984, 104–5; Zhou Zuoren 1998a, 106; CYPQJ, 3:297–99. 92. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 120–28, 139–44, 148–51; “Junjing yapo zhong de xuesheng yundong” and “Yanjiu shi yu jianyu,” Meizhou pinglun, June 8, 1919, 1–4. 93. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 143; Wang Xiaoqiu, “Sun Zhongshan yu Beijing daxue,” BDXB 33:5, 59–60; Joseph Chen 1971, 76. 94. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 148–60; Xiao Chaoran 1995, 222–25. 95. Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo zhonghua minguo shi yanjiushi 1983, 1:47–48, 49–50, 53–54; Shen Yinmo 1998, 175–76. 96. Wang Xiaoqiu, “Sun Zhongshan yu Beijing daxue,” BDXB 33:5, 59; CYPQJ, 3:307. 97. CYPQJ, 3:312–13.


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chapter 6: tensions within the may fourth movement 1. On the repertoire of student protest strategies, see Wasserstrom 1991, ch. 3. 2. “Xuesheng huanying Cai xiaozhang huixiao zhi ci,” BDRK, vol. 4, September 20, 1919. 3. Grieder 1981, 326–32. 4. “Ershiri zhi dahui jishi,” BDRK, vol. 4, September 22, 1919; see also Qian Liqun 2000, 10. 5. “Beijing daxue zhaokao jianzhang,” Xinchao 2, no. 3 (1920); Luo Dunwei 1952, 20–21. 6. Zhang Guruo, personal interview. 7. Li Xiaofeng 1978, 50–61; Chuan Dao, “Wusi huiyi,” WSHYL, 1:321; Luo Dunwei 1952, 24–25. 8. Tian Jiongjin 1973, 44. 9. Chen Gongbo 1945, 196–97. 10. Kang 1920, 48, 52. 11. The Students’ Association grew out of the Beida branch of the Student Society for National Salvation (Beida de jiuguohui), which played a key role in the May 1918 demonstrations (Xu Deheng 1979, 215). 12. Kang 1920, 50. On the flag’s symbolic meaning, see CYPQJ, 3:466–68. 13. Kang 1920, 48–50; “Xueshenghui pingyibu qishi,” BDRK, vol. 4, November 20, 1919. 14. Such warnings were published in the Beijing daxue rikan on August 28 and September 13, 1919. 15. Chen Taisheng et al. 1989, 39–40; Beijing daxue lishixi 1998, 34–35, 42; Wang Xuezhen et al. 1998, 1:69; WSQK, 1:299–300; Luo Jialun 1989, 21. 16. CYPQJ, 3:384–85. 17. Ibid., 3:361–62. 18. Chen Duxiu, “Tiaohelun yu jiu daode,” XQN 7, no. 1 (1919). The Morning Post published another attack on Zhang (WSQK, 1:109–10). 19. Wang Xuezhen et al. 1998, 1:72; Beijing daxue xuesheng zhoukan 1923, no. 7 (February 15, 1920), 15–16. 20. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 176–82. 21. Dirlik 1991, 159. 22. Ibid., 14. 23. Miu 1920, 4–5. 24. Liubing 1920. 25. Liebei 1920. Also see the issue of the Weekly (May 9, 1920) devoted to the topic of revolutionizing education. 26. Tian Jiongjin 1973, 44; Zhu Qianzhi 1993, 19–20. 27. In late May 1920, pressured by the Ministry of Education, the Weekly closed down. 28. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 96–97. 29. Luo Dunwei 1952, 24. 30. Miu 1922: 1–2; Tian Jiongjin 1973, 42.

31. Ma Yuancai 1982, no. 577 (October 16, 1982): 4. 32. Most but not all were from Beida. I follow Kwan’s (1997, 19) translation 284 Notes to Pages 193–202 of Xiyuan. 33. Ma Yuancai 1982; Luo Zhanglong 1984, 49–56. 34. Ma Yuancai 1982, no. 581. On the Worker’s Voice, see Xiao Chaoran 1995, 364. 35. Kwan 1997, 23; Wang Xiaoqiu, “Sun Zhongshan yu Beijing daxue,” BDXB 33:5, 64. 36. Dirlik 1989, 202. On Marxism at Beida, see Xiao Chaoran 1995, 282–302, 357–58. 37. On this topic, see Dirlik 1991, 29–30, 184–96. 38. On the “Labor-learning Mutual-aid Organization,” see WSST, 2:261–496; on the women’s group, see WSST, 2:387; on male and female participation, see WSST, 2:370, 395, 434. 39. Tian Jiongjin 1973, 44; Tao Xisheng 1998b, 47. 40. Quoted in Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 1:63. 41. WSST, 2:423–39. 42. Wang Zheng 1999, 59–66 (quotation is from p. 22). On this subject, see also Glosser 2002. 43. BDRK, vol. 2, December 22, 1918, 4; Wang Zheng 1999, 174. 44. Xu Chanzhi 1920, 38; Xia Xiaohong 1995, 150–51, 156; Kang Baiqing 1920; “Beijing xueshengjie nannü jiaoji de xiansheng,” Chen bao, May 20, 1920, p. 7. 45. Xu Chanzhi 1920, 38; Xia Xiaohong 1995, 151–52 (Deng’s letter is quoted in Xia Xiaohong). On Deng Chunlan and the effort to dismantle the gender barrier at Beida, see also Wang Zheng 1999, 77–78, 91–92. 46. Hu Shi 1919; Ouyang Zhesheng 1998, 74. Chen Hengzhe graduated from Vassar College in 1919 and received an M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1920. 47. Gu Jiegang 1984, 184; Xu Chanzhi 1920, 45; Tian Jiongjin 1973, 45. 48. Mao Dun 1992, 47; Pa Chin 1972, 32–33. 49. Xu Chanzhi 1920, 43–44. 50. Tretiakov 1934, 250. On criticisms of female students and the challenges they faced in coeducational settings, see also Wang Zheng 1999, 72, 82. 51. Luo Dunwei 1952, 22; Liang Zhu 1995, 88–89. 52. “Guoli Beijing daxue gailüe” 1923, 47; Yang Cuihua 1988, 294; Tao Dun 1987, 128; Wang Xuezhen et al. 1998, 1:103; Ma Jue 1988, 36. 53. Ma Jue 1988, 37. On female students receiving love letters, see also Wang Zheng 1999, 88–89. 54. Xin An, “Wo de xiwang,” in GBJNK, 3:163. 55. Beijing daxue xuesheng zhoukan 13 (March 28, 1920), 1. 56. Shao Piaoping 1988, 545; Shao Zhenqing 1923, 68–72. 57. Beijing daxue xuesheng zhoukan 11 (March 14, 1920), 4–5 and 14 (May 1, 1920), 12–14, respectively. For the New Life articles and the Li Dazhao quotation, see WSQK, 1:785–88, and 298, respectively. 58. Tao Dun 1987, 145.


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59. On Ding’s remarks, see Liu Yansheng 1994, 36. On Gu’s remarks, see Schneider 1971, 124. On May Fourth elitism, also see Feng Liping 1996. 60. Tianqiao was a market and entertainment center for the lower classes (Dong Yue 1996, ch. 5). 61. Tretiakov 1934, 254. 62. Schwarcz 1986, 92. 63. WSST, 1:304. 64. Fu Sinian, “Huiyi ‘Xinchao’ he ‘Xin qingnian,’ ” WSHYL, 2:174. 65. Zheng Zhenduo 1979, 45; Luo Jialun, “Huiyi ‘Xinchao’ he wusi yundong,” WSHYL, 2:181. Mao Dun also criticized faddishness in New Culture journals (see Wang Zheng 1999, 62, 84). 66. WSQK, 3:175–204; Miu Jinyuan, “Suowei ‘xin wenhua yundong’ de chachao yu pochan,” Piping 1, no. 1 (1920). 67. On Pinglun zhi pinglun, see WSQK, 3:404–10, 1103–4. 68. Chen Guyuan, “Beijing chengli de xiao xinwenzhi,” and Zhou Changxian, “Beijing xinwenzhi de piping,” Pinglun zhi pinglun 1, no. 1 (1920), 108–14 and 1, no. 4 (1921), 82–94, respectively. 69. Yi Junzuo 1969, 44, 56; Wang Yuanfang 1983, 43–44; “Beida xinwen jizhe tongzhihui jiang chengli,” Chen bao, February 5, 1922, 3. 70. Zheng Zhenduo 1979, 44. 71. Yan Xiangti, “Chubanjie zhi yipie,” Pinglun zhi pinglun, 1, no. 1 (1920). 72. Ip 1985, 174–76; Hu Yuzhi 1990, 137–38; Liu Hecheng 1990, 39–40; Lee 2001, 39–45, 54–55. 73. See, e.g., “Beijing daxue chubanbu guanggao,” BDRK, vol. 2, September 28, 1918, 1, and vol. 3, February 24, 1919, 1; Zheng Zhenduo 1979, 45. 74. Fu Sinian, “Huiyi ‘Xinchao’ he ‘Xin qingnian,’ ” WSHYL, 2:175. On the outcome of those plans, see Li Xiaofeng 1978, 63–65. 75. Family Research was published from August 1920 until November 1922 (Luo Dunwei 1952, 26–30; see also “Xinzhe bianyishe chengli ji,” BDRK, vol. 4, October 2, 1919, 2). For an interesting treatment of Family Research, see Glosser 2002. 76. Lee 2000; Yeh Wen-hsin 2000, 4–7. 77. Wang Jiarong 1985, 193; Reed 1996, 1996, ch. 1 and 367–71, 422–23. 78. Here I follow Lee (2000, 33–44) in borrowing this phrase from Robert Darnton. On the profitability of journals that dealt with women’s issues, see Wang Zheng 1999, 84–85. 79. Reed 1996, 32, 92. 80. Ip 1985, 189–90; Gao Pingshu 1992, 572–73. 81. Liu Hecheng 1990, 40; Shi Yuangao 1990, 147. Also see Zhou Wu 1998, 80; Reed 1996, 414. 82. On ties between Beida and the Commercial Press, see Wang Jianhui, “Zhongguo xiandai xueshu wenhua de shuangzi xingzuo—Beijing daxue yu Shangwu yinshuguan,” BDXB 36:2. 83. Reed 1996, 418–21; Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 26–27; Hockx 1998; Chen Fukang 1994, 80, 93; Miller 1997, 50–51. 84. Link 1981, 84, 87, 152.

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85. Strand 1989, 28. 86. Beijing’s population in 1919 was 600,000; by 1923 it had grown to 1,100,000 (Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 9). 87. Gamble 1921, 245–47, 275. 88. Tao Dun 1987, 145; Yang Dongping 1994, 150. 89. Tao Dun 1987, 120–21; Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 219–22. 90. Qin Wen, “Yi Shatan,” WSHYL, 1:1006; Tao Dun 1987, 139–41; Deng Yunxiang 1995, 148; Yang Dongping 1994, 101–2. 91. Strand 1989, 30–31; Yang Dongping 1994, 142; Deng Yunxiang 1995, 229. 92. Li Shuhua 1965, 19. 93. Tan Qixiang 1992, 25–26; Yang Dongping 1994, 142. 94. Wu Yu 1984, 1:601; Tan Qixiang 1992, 26. 95. Wu Yu 1984, 1:596–97, 601. 96. Qin Wen, “Wusi shiqi de xuesheng shenghuo,” WSHYL, 1:984. 97. Dong Yue 1996, 158. On Republican-era Beijing’s parks, also see Shi Mingzheng 1998. 98. Lin Taiyi 1994, 46; Yang Dongping 1994, 102–3; Xie Xingyao 1938, 27; Tan Qixiang 1992, 27. 99. Guy 1987, 93; Deng Yunxiang 1995, 54; Reed 1996, ch. 2. 100. Quoted in Deng Yunxiang 1995, 186. 101. Tan Qixiang 1992, 27; Reed 1996, ch. 2; Deng Yunxiang 1995, 187; Deng Keyin 1995, 60–63. 102. Yeh Wen-hsin 1995. 103. Strand 1989, 1, 7, 21–23, 33–34; see also Dong Yue 1996, 334–36. 104. Lin Yutang 1992, 509–11.

chapter 7: national university under siege 1. Yip Ka-che 1979, 187. 2. Wang Xuezhen et al. 1998, 1:78–79; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 220. 3. “Jiaoyu jingfei duli zhi da yundong,” Chen bao, March 13, 1921, 2; “Jing xuejie jiaoyu jingfei duli zhi yundong,” JYZ 13, no. 4 (1921): jishi section. 4. “Baxiao xuesheng zuo zai xinhuamen qingyuan,” Chen bao, April 13, 1921, 2. 5. Shou Moqing 1985, 13. 6. “Ai da hou jiao zhiyuan xuesheng zhi wengao,” and “Jiaoyujie chuangtong zhong zhi huhao sheng,” Chen bao, June 5 and June 6, 1921, respectively. For photographs, see the June 7, 1921 issue. 7. CYPQJ, 4:77–80. 8. Among those at Beida who had studied at Columbia were Jiang Menglin, Hu Shi, and Zhu Jingnong, who taught in the Department of Education. On the Beida–Columbia University connection, see Chen Pingyuan 1998a, section 3. 9. For a fuller list of foreigners who lectured at Beida, see Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 230–31; for Monroe’s lecture, see “Daxue zhi zhiwu,” BDRK, vol. 7, December 27, 1921, 1–4. 10. Graduate programs were originally established in 1917. On December


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14, 1921, the faculty council approved a plan for a more extensive graduate school consisting of four programs: natural science (ziran kexue), social science (shehui kexue), national studies (guoxue), and foreign literature (waiguo wenxue) (“Xiaozhang bugao,” BDRK, vol. 7, December 17, 1921, 1–2). 11. Beida shenghuo bianjibu 1921, 1–3. 12. A few months later, there was in fact another budget conflict, at which point Cai Yuanpei became an outspoken advocate of educational autonomy. 13. Nathan 1976, 176. 14. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 250; Shi Yuangao 1990, 129–30. 15. Chow Tse-tsung 1960, 240–42. 16. Jiang Baili, a military specialist who supported the New Culture Movement, instructed the Student Military Corps (Li Changren, “Wo guoqu xueshengjun shenghuo ji jinhou suo xiwang yu benjun tongrenzhi,” RSWZN 80; “Xueshengjun diyi xueqi kecheng biao,” BDRK, vol. 8, October 7, 1922. Also see McCord 1993, 312–15; Schoppa 1995, 137, 258. 17. On the Luo Wengan case, see Nathan 1976, 193–200. 18. On the lecture note controversy, see Liang Zhu 1983, 214–18. 19. CYPQJ , 4:311–13. 20. Quoted in Ma Zheng 1995, 341. 21. “Fakan ci,” Beida xuesheng xinwen, January 22, 1923, 1. 22. For the quotation from the Peking Leader, see “Students Seriously Injured When Police Attack After Demonstration Has Been Dispersed,” January 20, 1923, 1. On the students’ press conference, see “Zuori xuesheng lianhehui zhaodai xinwen jizhi zhi qingxing,” Beida xuesheng xinwen, January 25, 1923, 2. 23. “Women duiyu Beijing guoli xuexiao nanqian de zhuzhang,” Chen bao, February 5, 1923; Peking Leader, February 1–2, 1923, pp. 1 and 8, respectively. 24. Hu Shi 1995, 236–43. 25. Chen Duxiu and Cai Hesen founded The Guide in Shanghai in September 1922. The journal’s correspondence address was at Beijing University, however. On the East Asia Book Company as the journal’s publisher, see Wang Yuanfang 1983, 79–80. 26. Chen Duxiu, “Ping Cai xiaozhang xuanyan,” Xiangdao zhoubao 1, no. 17 (1923). 27. Chen Duxiu,”Jiaoyujie neng bu wen zhengzhi me?” Xiangdao zhoubao 1, no. 18 (1923). 28. In 1922 seventeen out of the twenty Communist Party members in Beijing were from Beida; in 1926 nearly half were from Beida (Wang Xiaoting and Huang Wenyi 1991, 12–13). 29. Dirlik 1989, 244; Xiao Chaoran 1995, 282–84, 377–78; Chen Taisheng et al. 1989, 44–47. 30. Beijing daxue lishixi 1998, 77. 31. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 152–53. 32. Beida xuesheng xinwen, January 25, 1923, 4; January 29, 1923, 4; and January 31, 1923, 1–2. At this time, Deng Zhongxia was head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Labor Secretariat (Kwan 1997, 28–35). 33. “ ‘Erqi’ canshi shangwang biao,” Beijing xuesheng lianhehui rikan, March 26, 1923, 1–2 and March 27, 1923, 2–3.

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34. Beijing xuesheng lianhehui rikan, February 14, 1923, 1–2. 35. Beijing xuesheng lianhehui rikan, , February 24, 1923, 1; and February 27, 1923, 1–2. 36. Quoted in Qu Shipei 1998, 58–59. 37. Chen Pingyuan 1998a, 143; see also Sang Bing 1999, 31. 38. “Benxiao fushe yinyue zhuanxisuo di sici yanzouhui yugao,” BDRK, vol. 9, March 7, 1923, 3. 39. Qu Shipei 1998, 59. 40. Jiang Menglin, “Beida zhi jingshen,” ESWZN, 1–2. 41. Luo Dunwei, “Beijing daxue jinhou de shiming,” ESWZN, 53–58. 42. Zhu Wushan, “Beida jingshen,” ESWZN, 9–17; and Yu Weiyi, “Jinian— yundong,” ESWZN, 3–9. 43. Huang Rikui, “Zai Zhongguo jindai sixiangshi yanjinzhong de Beida,” ESWZN, 43–53. 44. Guan Weihua, “Beida dansheng de Beijing he ta ying you de shiming jingshen,” ESWZN, 30–33. 45. Ding Wen’an, “Wo duiyu Beida jianglai de xiwang,” ESWZN, 34–37; and Su Jiarong, “Yin benxiao jinian er yinqi de ganxiang he xiwang,” ESWZN, 61–64. 46. Cai Jianguo 1997, 228. 47. Wang Xiaoqiu, “Sun Zhongshan yu Beijing daxue,” BDXB 33:5, 61–63. 48. Beida’s other delegates were Tan Xihong and Shi Ying (Li Shuhua 1965, 20). 49. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 163–65; Chen Taisheng et al. 1989, 58–60; Wang Xiaoqiu, “Sun Zhongshan yu Beijing daxue,” BDXB 33:5, 58; Fitzgerald 1996, 222. 50. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 167. 51. “Zaide baogao Beijing gexiao jinian wuyi huodong cheng” 1996, 611–12. 52. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 167. 53. Qu Shipei 1998, 61. 54. Bergère 1998, 398. 55. Zhou Zuoren wrote the foreword. I have adopted the translation in Miller 1997 (pp. 56–57). 56. Xiandai pinglun 1, no. 1 (1924): 2. 57. Shi Yuangao 1990, 137. On the controversy over the “aftermath conference,” see Chen Taisheng et al. 1989, 66–71. 58. Liu Yansheng 1994, 30–31; Tao Dun 1987, 137. 59. Beijing daxue lishixi 1998, 82–83; Li Huang 1978, 126. 60. Li Huang 1978, 120. 61. Chen Hansheng 1988, 28–29; see also Li Huang 1978, 123. 62. Zhu Xie 1983, 173, 176. 63. Ibid., 171; Sang Bing 1999, 30, 33. See also Zhou Zuoren 1998b: 419–24; Rao Gong 1998, 453–59; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 418–22. 64. Lin Taiyi 1994, 48, 64. See also Sang Bing 1999, 3. 65. Xiandai pinglun 1, no. 15 (1925): 2. 66. On Zhang Shizhao’s conservatism, see Shen Songqiao 1986.


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67. Xiandai pinglun 1:22, 2 and 1:23, 3–5. After Zhang Shizhao forbade them from commemorating the Day of Humiliation, thousands of students demanded that he be removed from office. Zhang resigned in May and fled to Tianjin. However, in July he resumed as Minister of Education (Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 170). 68. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 170–75; Zhang Rongfu, “Beida xueshengjun,” Jingbao fukan July 22 and July 29, 1925; Lincoln Li 1994, 31–32. 69. Schoppa 1995, 252; Fan Tiren 1979, 77–78; Li Huang 1978, 120–29; Huang Baoshi 27–30; Cheng Houzhi 262–63. 70. Cheng Houzhi 1998, 263. 71. Tao Dun 1987, 133. 72. Yeh Wen-hsin 1996, 214–18; Schwarcz 1986, 147. 73. Wasserstrom 1991, 117–24. 74. Tao Xisheng 1992: 488. 75. See, e.g., Tao Dun 1987, 112, 131, 136, and Rao Gong 1998, 459. 76. Zhang planned to found and serve as chancellor for a new National Beijing Women’s University. 77. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 177. 78. Xiandai pinglun, 2:40, 5, and 14–16; “Zhe hui wei benxiao tuoli jiaoyubu shi kangyi de shimo,” BDRK, vol. 12, September 21, 1925, 1–3. See also Shen Songqiao 1986, 242; Bai 1993, 226. 79. Shen Songqiao 1986, 244. 80. “Benxiao ershiqi zhounian jinian jingguo jilüe,” BDRK, vol. 12, December 26, 1925, 1. 81. Schoppa 1995, 195, 201, 209. 82. Zhang Jingchen, “Women jintian zhege jinianri yiyi”; Chen Qixiu, “Beijing daxue zai guomin geming shidai de renwu”; and Zhou Zuoren, “Zhe yi nian”; all in Beida xueshenghui zhoukan 1925, 25–26, 4–6, and 7–8, respectively. 83. Collected in Beida xueshenghui zhoukan 1925, 6–7. 84. Gu Mengyu, “Benxiao ershiqi zhounian jinian,” and Chen Qixiu, “Beijing daxue zai guomin geming shidai de renwu,” collected in Beida xueshenghui zhoukan 1925, 2–3 and 4–6, respectively. 85. Wang Dechong, “Beida cishi cidi ying fu de zeren”; Deng Wenhui, “Women weishenme yao juxing ershiqi zhounian jinian”; and Ming Zhongqi, “Beida zai lishi shang fu de liang da shiming”; all collected in Beida xueshenghui zhoukan 1925, 13–15, 15–16, and 23–24, respectively. 86. Lu Xun, “Wo guan Beida,” collected in Beida xueshenghui zhoukan 1925, 8–9. 87. See Schwarcz 1986, ch. 4. 88. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 180–86; Schwarcz 1986, ch. 4; Chen Taisheng et al. 1989, 118. 89. Tao Dun 1987, 159–60. 90. Chuan Dao, “Wusi zayi,” WSHYL, 1:969. 91. Gan Lao 1926; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 223; Liu Kexuan and Fang Mingdong 1998, 1:139. 92. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 236–37.

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93. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 235–38; Xu Baohuang, “Beida sanshiyi zhounian jinianri zhi ganxiang ji linian biye zhi tongji,” GBJNK, 3:42–43; Tao Dun 1987, 150–51. 94. Schneider 1971, 98–99; Chen Fukang 1994, 90–91; Reed 1996, 424; Lee 2001, 53. 95. “Shangwu shuguan bianyisuo laihan,” BDRK, vol. 11, May 26, 1924, 1. 96. Tao Xisheng 1992, 489–90; Wang Yuanfang 1983, 43–44. Much of what these lower-level editors did was convert Classical Chinese into the vernacular (Chen Fukang 1994, 84). 97. Yang Dongping 1994, 93. 98. Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 179–81; for an excellent discussion of the alienation that intellectuals suffered during the Nanjing Decade, see ch. 7. 99. On the “partification of education” and Zhu Jiahua’s role, see ibid., 172–79. 100. Yeh Wen-hsin 2000, 7. See also Lee 2000 and Cochran 2000. 101. Hockx 1998, 21; Miller 1997, 56–59. For Zheng Zhenduo’s remarks, see Feng Liping 1986, 184. 102. I have adopted the translation in Miller 1997 (67). 103. Yang Dongping 1994, 113; Chen Fukang 1994, 89–90. 104. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 240–41. 105. Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 243, 247; Tao Dun 1987, 197–98; Yeh Wenhsin 1990, 168, 173–79; Duiker 1997, 87–89. 106. Tao Dun 1987, 196–97. 107. GBJNK, 3:63–71; Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 245–50; Tao Dun 1987, 202–4; Chan and Dirlik, 227–30. 108. GBJNK, 3:180. 109. Ibid., 3:146. 110. For this point and statistics on the places of origin of Beida’s graduates, see ibid., 3:42–62. The quotation is from Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 178. 111. Israel 1966; Wasserstrom 1991. 112. Yeh Wen-hsin 1990, 263. 113. This was because Yanjing University was a private American university and because Qinghua University was funded by American sources as well (Zhao Dingxin 2001, 279, 290). On the December Ninth Movement, see Israel 1966, ch. 5. 114. Another center of critical thinking was National Labor University (Guoli laodong daxue), which was established in Shanghai in 1927 by leading anarchists within the Guomindang to pursue “the ideal of overcoming the distinction between manual and mental labor by creating a new type of intellectual, a laboring intellectual.” Never popular with party conservatives, the university was forced to close in 1932 (see Chan and Dirlik 1991; the quotation is from p. 9).

conclusion 1. For a brief discussion of activism at Beida against Japanese imperialism in the early 1930s, see Xiao Chaoran et al. 1988, 252–64.


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2. This point is made very clearly by Chen Fong-ching 2001. On “culture fever,” a good starting place is Davies 2001. 3. As vice-president of the University of Science and Technology in Anhui Province, Fang openly called for democracy. He was dismissed from the Communist party for this, and also because the protests of winter 1986–87, which spread to many cities in China, began at his university. 4. Telephone interview, October 8, 1997. 5. For the full text, see Wang et al. 1990. Nine years later, newly arrived in the United States after serving most of the intervening time in captivity, Wang was still thinking about Beida: “I have this dream to be the president of Beijing University,” he told a reporter in April 1998, just a week before Beijing University’s one-hundredth anniversary. “I want to get my Ph.D. from Harvard and go back to Beida” (Gargan 1998). 6. Zhao Dingxin 2001, 163, 251.

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Index

academic freedom, 172–74, 179 academies. See shuyuan aesthetic education, 81, 136, 189 anarchism, 73, 135–36, 139, 155, 164, 191–92, 277–78nn63,69,89, 280n44 ancient prose style. See guwen style Anderson, Benedict, 133 Anderson, Luther, 70–71, 73, 76–77, 91–92 Anfu Clique, 131, 171, 216, 220, 267n107 anti-Chinese Exclusion Laws (U.S.), 65 anti-dynastic political activism, 64–65, 73, 111 Anti-Rightist Campaign, 4, 252 apartment living, 101, 192–93, 202, 210, 231 athletic meets, 69–70 auditors, 149–50, 198–99 autonomous education movement, 216, 287n12 Awakened Lion Weekly, 235 awakening China, 9, 182, 259n24 Bai Junwu, 118 Ba Jin, 199 Bakunin, Mikhail, 135 Basics of Journalism (Xu), 208 Beida. See Beijing University Beida Life, 219–20 “Beida men,” 170–71 Beida Reporters’ Society, 205 “Beida spirit” (Beida jingshen), 228–31, 241, 247–49, 251–52

Beida Student News, 226–27 Beijing: demographics of, 210, 286n86; in late-Qing era, 40–77; lives of academics in, 209–14; as site of Imperial University, 28–31, 36 Beijing Student Union, 178–79, 227–28 Beijing Student Union Daily, 226, 227 Beijing University (Beida): anniversaries of, 139–42, 219, 229–31, 239–42, 248, 278n84, 290n110; campus of, ix–x, 6, 29, 34, 44–45, 101, 143, 148–49, 210, 212, 257n2, 278n4; during Cai Yuanpei’s chancellorship, 114–222, 274–76nn14,51; centennial of, 1–4, 257–58nn1,4,10,11; early history of, 5–11, 250–51, 258n16 (see also Jingshi daxuetang); politicization of, 147–81; post–1911 Revolution era and, 82–113, 272–73nn77,79,85,86,91; under siege, 215–49 Beijing University Daily (Beijing daxue rikan): on Chinese learning, 170; on coeducation, 198; on Esperanto movement, 135; on journalism, 166; on moral uplift, 148; notices in, 137–38, 139, 149–50, 226, 228–29, 243; publication of, 133, 188; on student lifestyles, 133–34, 142, 159; Xu Baohuang and, 165 Beijing University Monthly, 159–60, 208 Beijing University Students’ Weekly, 187–88, 190–93, 202, 283nn25,27

313

314 Beijing Women’s Normal College, 195–96, 198, 217, 238–39 Beiyang military clique, 115 Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences and Letters, 26 Biggerstaff, Knight, 15, 260n16 bildung ideal, 81–82, 120, 126, 268n9 Bi Xiangsui, 170 Bolsheviks, 162 books: acquisitions of, 45–46, 134, 148, 263n17; collections of, 22, 32, 132, 148, 160; translating of, 34, 45, 80, 98, 260n15, 263n15 bookstores, 124–25, 206, 212–13 Boxer Rebellion: Empress Dowager and, 43–44, 47; foreign faculty and, 38–39, 50, 263n19; Manchuria and, 265n63; Qing Court’s support of, 42; Wu Rulun and, 48 boycotts, student, 64, 65, 67, 87, 90, 156, 178, 189, 224, 236 bread movement (mianbao yundong), 188 Buddhism, 51, 107 Cai Hesen, 287n25 Cai Yuanpei: Beida and, 230–32; as chancellor during May Fourth Movement, 147, 178–84, 189–90, 195–200, 208–9; as chancellor during New Culture Movement, 44, 116–46, 149–51, 156–64, 171–73, 274–76nn4–6,15,55,60; as chancellor during warlord government crackdown, 216–27, 287n12; Discussion Group for European Affairs and, 98, 271n65; Guomindang and, 247–48; inaugural address of, 118–21; Jingshi daxuetang and, 71, 72, 102; as Minister of Education, 79–86, 88–90, 122, 197, 268n7; Patriotic Academy and, 61, 86 Calligraphy Society, 137 Cao Kun, 200, 229, 233 Cao Rulin, 177 Capital School. See Jing pai careerism, 92, 102–3, 141, 159 Cen Chunxuan, 99 centennial celebration, 1–4, 257–58nn1,4,10,11 chancellors, 82, 84, 86–93, 101, 104, 269n33. See also Cai Yuanpei Cha Xiaoyuan, 198–99 Chen Daji, 207, 208 Chen Daqi, 108, 142 Chen Duxiu: Beida and, 232; dismissal of, 173–75, 282nn74–76; May

Index Fourth Movement era and, 157–60, 172, 179, 189–90, 195, 206, 281n68; New Culture Movement and, 120, 124–28, 130–32, 142, 149, 154, 170, 207, 209, 276n55; publications of, 99–100, 124–25, 127, 151, 162–63, 165, 225, 275n34, 287n25 Chen Fuzhen, 117, 274n4 Ch’eng-Chu doctrine, 47 Cheng Hao, 121 Cheng Houzhi, 237 Chen Gongbo, 167, 186 Chen Gongpei, 196 Cheng Shewo, 167, 205, 207, 280–81n53 Chen Guyuan, 105, 205 Cheng Yansheng, 100, 130, 142 Chen Hansheng, 235 Chen Hanzhang, 58, 105, 170, 275n17 Chen Hengzhe, 198, 284n46 Chen Jie, 275n17 Chen Qilu, 121 Chen Qixiu, 240, 276n60 Chen Qizhang, 17 Chen Shizeng, 137 Chen Shizhang, 276n55 Chen Yan, 107 Chen Yixian, 71–72 Chen Yuan, 233 Chiang Kai-shek, 244, 248 Chicago Daily News, 91 China Discussion, The, 42 China Education Society (qingyi bao), 117 Chinese Communist Party. See Communist Party Chinese Family Problem, The (Yi and Luo), 208 Chinese learning zhongxue): during Cai Yuanpei’s chancellorship, 117, 123–25; in late-Qing era, 14, 28–35, 38, 67; in May Fourth era, 158, 161, 170–72; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 83–85 Chinese Revolutionary Party, 97 Chinese Socialist Party, 51 Chinese vernacular. See vernacular Chinese Chow Tse-tsung, 9, 156, 175, 190, 192, 259n22 Chuan Dao, 169, 185, 242 Chu Hsi, 18 Citizen, 164–65, 166, 170, 190 Citizen Magazine Society, 160–61 civil service examination system: abolition of, 66, 69–72, 141, 266n85; access to power and, 6, 14–15; at

Index Guozijian, 26; Imperial University and, 7, 30, 36–37, 57–58; at shuyuan, 17–20; Tongwen Guan and, 16; weixin group and, 23; Wu Rulun and, 48 Cixi, Empress Dowager. See Empress Dowager class consciousness: growth of, 101–02, 149–51, 167–68, 188, 191–98, 201–03, 210, 214, 225, 227–28, 230, 232, 235, 238 Classics Department, 67, 83, 266n82 Clinton, Bill, 4–5 coeducation, 51–52, 197–201, 284nn45,46,50,53 Collins, Randall, 131 Commentary on Commentary (Pinglun zhi pinglun), 204–5, 206 Commercial Press: Beida and, 219, 224, 285n82, 290n96; publications of, 166, 208, 221; publishing industry and, 206, 243–44, 246; Wang Yunwu and, 209; Zhang Yuanji and, 36, 80, 121, 126 commercial publishing. See publishing industry commoners, 26, 190, 201–3, 261n55 Commoners’ Education Lecture Society, 167–68, 194, 201, 226, 281n55 Commoners’ Night School, 150–51, 201 communal living, 193–94 Communist Party: Beida and, 225–26, 287nn28,32; Beida centennial and, 2–5, 257–58nn1,10,11; Fang Lizhi and, 252; Guomindang and, 247–48; Journalism Society and, 166; publications of, 161; Student Union and, 228; United Front and, 224, 231–35 communists, 150, 174, 230, 241 Communist Small Group, 194–95, 225 compromise (tiaohe), 99, 116, 127, 137, 141–42, 189–90 Confucian classics, 52–53, 67, 83, 222, 266n82, Confucian curriculum: in late-Qing era, 47, 53, 83; in nineteenth century, 17–18, 26, 29; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 94, 96 Confucianism: Cai Yuanpei and, 80–82, 136–37; in late-Qing dynasty, 75; in May Fourth era, 6, 154, 155, 170–72; New Culture Movement and, 129–30, 152; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 90 Confucian Study Society, 170 Confucian Temple, 16, 22, 53

315 Consciousness (Juewu), 190 conservatives: in late-Qing Beijing, 46–47, 59–60, 66–68; in May Fourth era, 9, 161, 178, 179, 199; New Culture Movement and, 125, 154, 170–74; in nineteenth century, 14–16, 19, 21, 29–31, 36, 38 Consumers’ Union, 139, 278n78 Contemporary Review (Xiandai pinglun), 233–36, 239, 240, 244 co-provincial associations, 137–38, 156, 185–86, 277n74 cosmopolitanism, 8, 11, 36, 40–42, 132 Creation Society, 245 Criticism (Piping), 204 Cui Shi, 125 cultural marketplace, 11, 206–9 Cultural Revolution, 4, 252 Cun Tong, 196 Dagong bao, 70 daigaku, 13, 259n2 Day of National Humiliation (May 7th), 176, 236, 288–89nn66,67 Debate Society, 137 December Ninth Movement, 249, 290n113 Democracy Salon, 252 democratic ideas: centennial celebration and, 3–4; New Culture Movement and, 161–63; in nineteenth century, 24; Second Revolution and, 97; students and, 58, 89–90 demonstrations. See student activism Deng Chunlan, 197–98, 284n45 Deng Wenhui, 241 Deng Xihua, 203 Deng Zhongxia, 193–94, 227, 287n32 Dewey, John, 126, 183, 184–85, 218, 219 “Diary of a Madman” (Lu), 153 Ding Kaizhang, 64 Ding Ling, 150 Ding Wen’an, 231 Ding Wenjiang, 174, 202, 221 Ding Xilin, 219 diplomas, 74, 267n105 Dirlik, Arif, 135–36, 191, 195, 226, 277n63 Discussion Group for European Affairs, 97–99, 271nn65,67, 275n32 Dong’an Market, 102, 106 Dongfang Zazhi. See Eastern Miscellany Dong Hongyi, 93, 95, 108, 269–70nn27,53 Donglin Academy, 25, 145, 224, 278n91

316 Dongnan daxue. See Southeastern University dormitories, 39, 54, 56–57, 64, 88, 96, 101, 102, 128, 135, 142, 150, 178, 186, 193, 200, 202, 232, 242 Drama Society, 220 dress codes. See student clothing Driesch, Hans, 219 Duan Qirui: Anfu Clique and, 131, 171, 267n107; appointment of, 115–16; Li Yuanhong power struggle and, 127–28, 275n36; loss of power of, 200, 216, 220; May Fourth Movement and, 156–57, 179, 279n22; return of, 233–34, 236, 239, 242; Tongcheng School and, 153 Duan Xipeng, 186 Duan Zhigui, 190 Duli zhoubao (Independence Weekly), 86–87, 92 East Asia Book Company, 208, 224, 271n69, 287n25 Eastern Miscellany (Dongfan Zazhi), 121, 201, 206–7 Educational World, 52, 267–68n111 elitist value system, 8–9, 11, 18, 167, 201–5, 245–46, 285n59 Elman, Benjamin, 66, 266n85 Empress Dowager (Cixi): birthday of, 53; death of, 73, 75; “Hundred Days’ Reform” and, 31, 37; Imperial University and, 58, 60, 66, 74; Li Hongzhang and, 262n92; Qiang xuehui and, 22; Sun Jia’nai and, 23; W. A. P. Martin and, 47; women’s education and, 51; Wu Rulun and, 48; Xu Jingcheng and, 38; Zhang Baixi and, 44, 46 Endeavor Weekly, 221, 224 Esperanto, 135, 150, 164, 191 essential learning (ti), 28–33, 107, 122 Evolution (Jinhua), 164, 280n44 Evolution Society, 280n44 examinations: entrance, 185; for officials’ college, 54, 265n45; for preparatory college, 92, 96. See also civil service examination system Exhortation to Learning (Zhang), 29, 66 extracurricular activities, 106, 134–39, 160, 219–20, 252 faculty wage strike, 217–19 Family (Ba), 199 Family Research, 207, 285n75 Fang Hao, 183, 187, 190 Fang Lizhi, 252, 291n3

Index Fan Yuanlian, 51, 88, 117, 141, 274–75n14 Far East Book Company, 98, 207, 276n42 February 7 Massacre (1923), 227 female education. See women’s education Female Student Society, 200 feminist movement, 51–52 Feng Guifen, 15 Feng Guozhang, 128, 156 Fengtian Clique, 200, 220 Feng Youlan, 36–37, 103, 109, 121, 258n7 Feng Yuxiang, 233 Feng Zuxun, 76 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 126–27 First National Congress (Guomindang), 231–32, 288n48 Forbidden City, 6, 34, 45, 128 foreign faculty, 38–39, 50, 123, 218–19, 263n19, 286n9 foreign language study, 15, 17, 105, 150, 259n6, 273n97 foreign study program. See study abroad Four Treasuries encyclopedia project, 32, 263n24 Freedom Record (Ziyou lu), 135, 277n69 free love, 164, 199 French Revolution, 10, 69, 144, 162, 268n7 Frugal Study Society, 134–35 Fudan University, 41, 88, 179 Fujitani, Takashi, 5, 258n15 Fulfill the Promise Society, 149 Fushe partisans, 224 Fu Sinian, 102, 106, 109, 120, 149, 154, 170, 203–4, 207 Fuzhou student protests, 188–89 Gamble, Sidney, 210 gambling, 92, 103, 121, 135, 143, 145, 159, 168, 193, 231 Gangyi, Manchu Grand Councillor, 30, 35, 38 Gao Yihan: May Fourth era and, 195; New Culture Movement and, 207; publications of, 100, 127, 130, 151, 221, 233, 235; warlord governments and, 232 Garden of Morning Light commune, 194–95, 284n32 gender equality, 165, 172–73, 195–96, 284n38 German university model, 80–82, 122, 140 Gong, Prince, 15 Gongyan bao (Public Voice), 171

Index “good men Cabinet,” 221–22 Goodnow, Frank, 112 gradualism, 183–84, 233 graduate programs, 67–68, 82, 134, 219, 266n83, 276n60, 286–87n10 graduation ceremonies, 74–75, 267nn107,108 Guangxu emperor, 22, 27, 30, 31, 34, 260–61n42 Guan Weihua, 231 Gu Hongming, 51, 125, 154, 170, 172, 179 Guide, The (Xiangdao), 224, 226, 287n25 Gu Jiegang, 101–2, 106, 109, 133, 198, 202, 224, 233 Gu Mengyu, 237, 240 Guo Chuliang, 191 Guo Lishan, 49 Guo Luoji, 2 Guomindang (Nationalist Party), 11, 224, 227–28, 234–35, 240; Beida and, 247–49; Cai Yuanpei and, 118, 126; First National Congress of, 231–32; publications of, 94, 163, 190; Society for the Discussion of Constitutional Government and, 116; Zhang Shizhao and, 86–87 Guo Qinguang, 177–78, 282n86 Guozijian, 2, 16, 24, 26–27, 34–35, 43–44, 258–61nn7,55 guwen style, 47, 264n30 Gu Yanwu, 22, 23 Gu Zhongxiu, 98, 127, 267n107, 271n65 Hai pai, 41, 246–47 Han Chinese, 54, 60, 68, 74, 77 Han dynasty, 24–25, 62, 258n7 Han Learning, 50, 58, 107, 109, 263n24, 273n104 Hanlin Academy, 16, 58, 79, 172, 209 Hart, Robert, 20, 260n15 Hattori, Shigeko, 51 Hattori, Unokichi, 50–52, 68–69, 76, 80, 264–65nn34,42 He Jushi, 91–96, 107–8, 267–68n111, 270–73nn45,109 He Lüzhe, 137 He Mengxiong, 150 He Yujie, 76 Higher Normal School, 46, 76, 232 “highest school” (zuigao xuefu): Beijing University as, 96, 118, 120, 128–34, 186, 230; in late-Qing dynasty, 44–45, 62; in nineteenth century, 7, 13, 25–26

317 Hong lou (Red Building), 148 Huang Kan, 108–9, 111–12, 125, 155, 161, 170, 179 Huang Lingshuang, 191, 277n69 Huang Rikui, 220, 230–31 Huang Tianpeng, 280n49 Huang Xing, 86, 97, 271n65, 271n67 Huang Yanpei, 180 Huang Youchang, 276n60 Huang Youxuan, 126 Huang Yuanyong, 99 Huang Zhensheng, 276nn55,60 Huang Zongxi, 22, 23–25, 44, 261n50, 278n91 humanities division, 103, 106–10, 122, 154, 170, 173, 235–36, 273n104 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 81, 126 “Hundred Days’ Reform,” 7, 31, 37, 44, 48, 63, 262n92 Hundred Flowers Campaign, 252 Hunt, Lynn, 10 Hu Qianzhi, 139, 141, 278n78 Hu Renyuan: chancellorship of, 101, 104–5, 107–8, 112–13, 116–17; student unrest and, 92–93, 95, 270n52 Hu Shi: May Fourth era and, 160, 174, 180, 183–84, 186, 189, 190, 195, 198, 281–82nn68,76; New Culture Movement and, 120, 126–27, 130–32, 149–50, 169–70, 207, 209, 276nn55,60; publications of, 100, 151–54, 208, 221, 224; on Taixue tradition, 258n7; warlord governments and, 221, 234–35, 286n8 Hu Xiansu, 57, 73, 75, 172, 267n109 Hu Yepin, 150 imperialism, 13–14, 20–21, 52, 161, 166, 232, 236 imperial restoration campaigns, 77, 112–16, 128–30, 275n36 Imperial University. See Jingshi daxuetang Imperial University Regulations, 53 intellectual cohorts, 22, 47, 49, 98–100, 106–110, 116–18, 125–28, 131–32, 151, 172, 233–36 international media coverage, 4–6 Iwaya, Magozo, 50, 61–62, 80 James, Francis, 38, 263n19 Japan: and China, 5, 43, 50–53, 80, 148, 179, 279n22; Chinese in, 31, 35, 40–42, 51–52, 59, 61, 72, 74, 76, 86, 96–98, 108–12, 136, 156, 235, 267–68n111, 270n45, 271n65, 273n104; as model, 13–14, 21,

318 Japan (continued) 25–26, 28, 45, 48–49, 51–53, 61, 66, 69, 76, 84, 104, 109, 122, 150, 174, 259n2, 261n52, 267–68n111; threat posed by, 13–14, 21, 28, 52, 59, 79, 141, 156, 174–76, 180, 189–90, 232, 236 Jesuits, 88, 259n2 Jiang Baili, 287n16 Jiang Kanghu, 51 Jiang Menglin: as acting chancellor, 180, 222, 228–30, 233, 240, 244; May Fourth era and, 183, 192; study abroad of, 286n8 Jiangnan elites, 41, 73, 262n3 Jiang Tingfu, 233 Jiang Weiqiao, 86, 126–27 Jiang Zemin, 2–3 Jiaoyu shijie (Education World), 267–68n111 Jing pai, 41, 246–47 Jingshi daxuetang: centennial of, 1–4, 257–58nn1,4,10,11; establishment of, 7, 13, 23–39, 261–62nn78, 84,85; in late-Qing era, 27–39, 40–77, 261–62nn78,84,85; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 78–83. See also Beijing University jingshi tradition (statecraft), 14, 19, 48, 144 jinshi: degree holders of, 16, 35, 36, 38, 54, 57–58, 82, 209 journalism, 165–67, 204–5, 280–81nn49,51,55 Journalism Society, 165–67, 201, 205, 280n46 Journalism Weekly, 166, 280n51 juren degrees, 36, 53, 57–58, 74, 172, 209, 270n52, 278n78 Kang Baiqing, 173, 186–87, 197 Kang Youwei, 17, 21–23, 44, 63, 125, 130, 262n84 Keenan, Barry, 19 Ke Shaomin, 77, 267–68n111 Kropotkin, Peter, 135, 139, 195 Kuhn, Philip, 23, 63 Kwan, Daniel, 194 Labor-learning Mutual-aid Organization, 195–96, 199, 284n38 Lake Yang School, 50, 264n33 lecture note controversy (1922), 222, 287n18 Lee, Leo Ou-fan, 153, 207–8, 279n16 Lenin, 162, 231–32 Levenson, Joseph, 34, 261n77, 268n9

Index Liang Qichao: on 1911 Revolution, 165–66; Duan Qirui and, 115; educational plan of, 32–35, 36, 38, 53, 67; post–1911 Revolution era and, 89–90; publications of, 24, 42, 59, 98; as reformer, 22–23, 27, 30–31, 63, 69, 120; Research Clique and, 267n107; Wu Rulun and, 264n27 Liang Shaowen, 159 Liang Shiqiu, 233 Liang Shuming, 130, 150, 170, 221 liberal tradition, 3–4, 86, 99–100, 251–52, 269n29 library collections, 45–46, 134, 148, 263n17 Li Dazhao: “Beida spirit” and, 228; execution of, 241, 244; May Fourth era and, 160, 161, 183–84, 194–95, 202; New Culture Movement and, 148, 151, 153–54, 162, 169; publications of, 100, 127, 129–30, 151, 153–54; United Front and, 231–33; warlord governments and, 221, 225–26 Li Duanfen, 27 Li Genyuan, 271n65 Li Hongzhang, 15, 21, 22, 47–49, 88, 262n92, 264n27 Li Huang, 237 Li Jiaju, 70 Li Liejun, 271n65 Li Linyu, 219 Lin Qi, 267–68n111 Lin Shu: Jingshi daxuetang and, 49, 74; May Fourth era and, 152–53, 174, 178; publications of, 171–72, 281nn67,68; Tongcheng School and, 49, 107, 109, 264n30, 273n112 Lin Sun, 170 Lin Xinggui, 76 Lin Yutang, 213–14, 233–34, 236 Li Shizeng, 98, 126–27, 135, 143, 197, 232, 235, 247, 274n6 Li Shuhua, 211, 219 Li Siguang, 219 Literary Association, 209, 234, 245 Liubing, 191–92 Liu Fu, 130–32, 142, 151–52, 154, 209, 233 Liu Junning, 4, 258n11 Liu Keyi, 38 Liu Renjing, 177 Liu Shipei, 125, 154, 155, 161, 170, 172 Liu Sifu, 135 Liu Tianhua, 137 Liu Tingchen, 77 Liu Wendian, 100, 130–32, 142, 207

Index Liu Zongzhou, 144, 278n91 Li Weisen, 150 Li Xinbai, 195 Li Yuanhong, 115, 117, 127–28, 275n36 love letters, 200, 284n53 Luilichang book merchants, 212–13 Luo Changpei, 170 Luo Dunwei, 185–86, 192, 204–5, 207–8, 230 Luo Dunyong, 47, 59 Luo Jialun: May Fourth era and, 178, 186, 206; New Culture Movement and, 121, 149, 174; publications of, 160, 166–67, 173, 204 Luo Wengan, 221–22 Luo Zhenyu, 267–68n111 Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren): Beijing Women’s Normal College and, 239; May Fourth era and, 187, 212, 242; New Culture Movement and, 124, 126, 129, 140, 169; post-1911 Revolution era and, 111–12; publications of, 3, 153, 233, 235, 239, 241, 245, 258n8; Zhang Taiyan and, 273n104 Lu Zongyu, 51 Ma Heng, 236 Ma Jue, 200 Manchus, 15, 17–18, 22, 30, 34–35, 43–44, 48, 54, 59–61, 63–64, 68, 73–74, 91, 111, 125, 128–29, 172, 211, 257n2, 266n85, 270n53, 273n104 Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School, 154 Mao Dun (Shen Yanbing), 105, 199, 209, 243, 285n65 Mao Zedong, 149, 166 Mao Zishui, 109, 149 Ma Qichang, 49, 178, 264n30, 273n112 March Eighteenth Massacre of 1926, 242, 244 March First Movement in Korea (1919), 176, 282n81 marriage choice, 169, 173 Martial Arts Society, 137 Martin, W. A. P.: dismissal of, 46–47, 49, 263n19; on Guozijian, 26; at Jingshi daxuetang, 35, 38–39, 262n84; at Tongwen Guan, 16, 260n15 Marxism, 3, 194–95, 226, 259n22 Marxist Study Society, 194–95, 225–26 Mashen miao, 34 Mathematics and Science Journal, 165 Ma Xiangbo, 88–91, 270n44 Ma Xulun: Cai Yuanpei and, 117, 274n4; as faculty wage strike leader,

319 217–18, 220; May Fourth era and, 161, 170, 173; post-1911 Revolution era and, 108, 112–13; as university council member, 275n17 May Fourth Movement, 175–81, 250–52, 282n82; anarchism and, 135–36; in Beida history, 4, 8–11, 34, 257–59nn1,22,23; decline of, 242–47; era of, 79, 92, 147–81; Mao Zedong and, 149; pro-Japanese officials and, 51, 179–80; provincial vs. national identity in, 138–39; tensions within, 182–214, 220 Ma Yinchu, 174, 276n60 May 1918 protests, 155–58, 160, 175–76, 283n11 Ma Youyu, 108, 142, 200, 236, 239 May Thirtieth Movement, 237–38 Ma Yuancai, 193, 281n60 Meditation Society, 137 Mei Guangdi, 172 Meiji Japan: as cosmopolitan center, 42; modernization of, 52; Western learning and, 13–14, 21, 25–26, 259–61nn2,52; Wu Rulun’s visit to, 48–50 Mei Lanfang, 77 Mencius, 67, 266n82 military drills, 59, 69–70 Military Mutual Assistance Convention with Japan, 156, 279n22 Minbao, 111 Mingyi daifang lu (Huang), 23 Ming Zhongqi, 241 Ministry of Education, 68, 74, 84–88, 92–96, 122–23, 178, 269–71nn27,62 Minli bao (The People’s Stand), 86–87, 94 missionary schools, 17, 31, 67 Miu Jinyuan, 193, 203–4 mnemonic sites, 5, 258n15 modernity: intellectuals and, 8–9, 51, 79, 259n22; May Fourth era and, 207–8; in Nanjing Decade, 245; nineteenth-century reformers and, 13–14, 33 modernization effort, 16–20, 32–33, 52, 141 Monroe, Paul, 219 moral education: during Cai Yuanpei’s chancellorship, 119–20, 136, 143–45; in late-Qing era, 55–56, 67, 69; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 81, 94, 268n7 Morning Post (Chen bao), 163, 167, 174, 197, 225, 283n18

320 Morning Post Literary Supplement (Chen bao fukan), 173, 205 Music Magazine, 137 Music Society, 136, 220, 229, 277n71 mutual aid, 136, 139, 141, 162–64, 187, 195, 278n78 Nanjing Decade, 11, 242–49, 290n98 Nanyang College, 41, 45, 270n52 National Assembly, 97, 115–16, 127–28, 275n36, 279n22 National Beijing Medical College, 108, 117 national essence (guocui), 107, 171, 273n104 National Heritage Monthly (Guogu), 170–72 Nationalist Party. See Guomindang National Labor University, 258n20, 290n114 National Protection Army, 99, 115 National University. See Beijing University native-place ties. See co-provincial associations Neo-Confucianism, 15–20, 47, 55, 121, 135, 144 New China (Zhonghua Xinbao), 275n32 New Culture Movement, 175–82, 185–96, 199, 201–8; nucleus of, 97–100, 121–28, 131–46; politicization of, 49, 163, 166–75, 279n16 New Culture network, 97–100, 117, 121–28 New Education (Xin jiaoyu), 189 New Knowledge Compilation and Translation Society, 205, 207 New Life (Xin Shenghuo), 190, 191, 202, 203 New Life Movement, 193–97 newspapers: Beida students and, 67, 94, 167, 190–91, 198–99, 204–05, 210, 212, 218, 223, 232; critiques of, 87, 165–67, 204–05, 218; importance of, 42, 59–60, 63, 125, 133, 162, 165–66, 175–76, 197 “New Systems Reforms,” 43 New Text literary tradition, 50, 125 New Tide (Xinchao), 160, 164–66, 168, 170, 172–73, 189–92, 199, 203–5 New Tide Society, 164, 186, 199, 207, 220 New Youth (Xin Qinqian): Cai Yuanpei and, 121; Chen Duxiu and, 99–100, 124–25, 127, 130, 275n34; May Fourth era and, 155, 157, 161, 163–65, 184, 186, 189; New Cul-

Index ture Movement and, 98, 151–53; publication of, 208, 224 Night School for University Workers, 150, 168, 201, 281n58 1989 movement, 4, 252–53 1911 Revolution: bread movement and, 188; exiled intellectuals and, 40, 42–43; failure of, 95, 97, 115; Jingshi daxuetang and, 8, 75, 78–79, 83–84, 267n107; Liang Qichao on, 165–66 non-cooperation, principle of, 222–27 Northern Expedition, 242, 247 Official Book Depot (Guanshu ju), 22, 27 officials’ college (shixue guan), 53–54, 58, 62, 71 opera, 72, 77, 106, 133, 140, 211 “ordering the national past” movement (Zhengli guogu), 171 Outline for the Study of Journalism (Xu), 166, 280n49 Pacific Ocean (Tainping yang), 130, 276n42, 280–81n53 Painting Magazine, 137 Painting Society, 137, 220 Paris peace conference, 176–77, 180 “partification of education,” 11, 244, 259n30, 290n99 patriarchal family, 165, 169, 198–99 Patriotic Academy (Shanghai), 61, 65, 86 Patriotic Girls’ School (Shanghai), 197, 269n33 Paulsen, Friedrich, 80, 268n5 Peking Leader, The, 223, 287n22 Peking Press (Jing bao), 166, 167, 201, 205, 223, 237 Peng Yunyi, 222–23, 225–28 Philosophy Study Society, 160 physical education program, 69–71 Physical Education Society, 137 policy-making council (pingyihui): Beijing Women’s Normal College and, 239; Cai Yuanpei’s resignations and, 128, 178; departmental assemblies and, 132; educational affairs office and, 173; establishment of, 122; Fulfill the Promise Society and, 149; members of, 236, 275–76nn17,55; reforms and, 132–33; Student Savings Bank and, 139; student version, 187 political activism. See student activism political culture, 7–11, 12–39, 147–81, 259n25

Index political rallies. See student activism populism, 151, 162, 202 Practice Society (Shijian She), 237 preparatory college (Yuke), 53–54, 74–76, 92–96, 101, 104–6, 265n44, 272nn79,80,90 prison: intellectuals and, 111, 222, 274n118; students and, 179–80, 190, 192 Progressive Party, 116, 167 prostitution, 17, 103, 106, 113, 143–45, 148, 159, 169–70, 173, 192–94, 200, 205, 210, 231, 246, 282n74, 282n76 protest movements. See student activism provincial associations. See co-provincial associations public opinion, 61, 98–99, 159, 163–68, 178, 180, 195, 217–18 publishing industry, 11, 36, 42, 206–9, 234, 243, 245–47, 263n7, 285n78, 298–303 Puyi, 128–29 Qian Liqun, 4, 129, 258n12 Qianlong reign, 32, 34, 263n24 Qian Xuantong: May Fourth era and, 186, 281n68; New Culture Movement and, 132, 142, 151–55, 169–70; post–1911 Revolution era and, 108–9, 111–12; publications of, 151–52, 233; vernacular Chinese and, 129, 151–52; Zhang Taiyan and, 273n104 Qin Fen, 174, 275–76nn17,55,60 Qingdao, 177, 180 Qinghua University, 249, 290n113 Qingliu groups, 21, 260nn34,35 Qingyi bao, 42 qingyi style of remonstrance, 21, 260nn34,35 Qin Shihuang, 175 Qiu Jin, 52 queues, 77, 101, 125, 129, 172 Qu Qiubai, 150 railroad workers’ strike (1923), 227 Rainbow (Mao Dun), 199 Rankin, Mary, 41 Record of Leisure (Xiaoxian lu), 133 rectors, 69, 70, 77, 82, 266n84 regular university (fenke daxue), 53, 67, 76, 265–68nn44,111 Reid, Gilbert, 28–29 “Renyin university,” 43–46 Reorganization Loan, 94

321 Republican Times (Minguo ribao) (Shanghai), 190, 197, 204, 232, 280–81n53 Research Clique, 163, 267n107 research universities, 67–68, 80–83, 122, 134, 145, 159, 170–71 Resist Russia Iron and Blood Corps, 64 Resist Russia Movement (1903), 61–64, 73, 265n63 Restore the university movement, 247–48 Revolutionary Alliance, 86–87, 269nn31,33 Reynolds, Douglas, 43, 78 Riben youxue zhinan (Zhang), 264n36 Ricci, Matteo, 36 Rickshaw Beijing (Strand), 182, 213 Righteousness Magazine (Zhengyi Zazhi), 98 role models, 88–90, 111, 126 Ronglu, Manchu Grand Councillor, 44, 60, 263n9 Rongqing, 60, 66 Rou Shi, 150 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 194 rule of law, 95, 128–29, 162–63 Russell, Bertrand, 219 Russian aggression, 61–64, 265n63 Saishi, Nakajima, 48 Salon on the Lawn, 252 Sanger, Margaret, 219 Schneider, Laurence, 170 school flag, 187, 283n12 School for Chinese Workers, 117, 274n6 School for the Sons of the Empire. See Guozijian school insignia, 140, 187 Schoppa, R. Keith, 10, 98 Schwarcz, Vera, 9, 164, 203, 242, 259n22 Second Revolution, 94–97, 99, 114–15, 125–26, 131, 271n65 Self-strengthening Movement, 15, 21 servants: intellectuals as, 14, 41, 64, 147; intellectuals and, 56–57, 103, 118, 135, 150–51, 168, 193–94, 201–02, 211, 243 Shanghai: as cosmopolitan center, 10, 11, 36, 40–42, 209, 214, 216, 234, 243; foreign language colleges in, 15, 17; middle-class values and, 11, 208, 213, 244–47, 251, 253; as publishing center, 36, 42, 206, 208, 209, 234, 243; student activism in, 61, 64–65, 156–57, 179, 238, 258n20 Shanghai School. See Hai pai Shao Piaoping, 166–67, 201–2, 223, 242

322 Shen Congwen, 150 Shen Jianshi, 108, 111, 220, 235–36 Shen Shiyuan, 235 Shen Yinmo: May Fourth era and, 173–74; New Culture Movement and, 117, 124, 132–33, 142, 236, 276nn55,60; post-1911 Revolution era and, 103, 105, 108–9, 269–73nn27,109; United Front and, 235 Shen Zhaozhi, 47, 60 Shibao (Eastern Times), 104 Shifu, 191 Shils, Edward, 80 Shimoda, Utako, 51–52 Shimonoseki, Treaty of, 14, 21 Shi Ying, 288n48 Short Story Monthly, 206, 209 Shuowen jiezi, 111–12 shuyuan, 17–20, 41–42, 43, 57, 120 Sino-French War (1883–1884), 21 Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895), 13, 21, 79, 141 Sirén, Osvald, 219 Social Darwinism, 49 socialists, 224 Socialist Youth Corps, 225–26, 232 social news, 202 Social Welfare Daily (Yishi bao) (Tianjin), 167, 205 Society for the Promotion of Morality (Jinde hui), 143–45, 148, 155, 159, 161 Society for the Study of Self-Strengthening (Qiangxue hui), 22 Society for the Study of the Arts, 137 Society for the Study of Sun Yatsen-ism, 237 Song dynasty, 24–25, 62, 258n7 Song Imperial College, 25, 62, 74 Song Jiaoren, 94, 274n118 Song Learning, 48, 107, 263n24 Southeastern University (Dongnan daxue), 172, 224, 238 Strand, David, 182, 210, 213 strikes, 179, 189, 217–19, 227 Struggle (Fendou), 191 student activism, 7, 252–53; 1903 protests, 59–65, 66; 1907 protests, 73; Dong Hongyi and, 270n53; in Fuzhou, 188–89; government school student protest, 223, 287n22; International Labor Day rally, 232; Jiang Zemin on, 3; June 1925 anti-imperialist demonstrations, 236; in Korea, 176, 282n81; March Eighteenth Massacre of 1926 and, 242; May 1913 preparatory college

Index protests,92–96; May 1918 protests, 155–58, 160, 175–76, 283n11; May Fourth Movement (see May Fourth Movement); against Peng Yunyi, 223, 225–27; in Shanghai, 61, 64–65, 156–57, 179, 258n20; of Song and Han dynasties, 24–25, 62, 179, 224; against Wang Jiuling, 236; against Zhang Shizhao, 239 student clothing, 59, 69, 73, 143, 237 student lifestyles: during Cai Yuanpei’s chancellorship, 133, 142; in lateQing era, 56–59, 71–72, 265n52; in May Fourth era, 192–93; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 101–6, 272–73n91 Student Military Corps (Xuesheng jun), 222, 236–37, 287n16 Students’ Association, 186, 190, 191, 201, 223, 226, 237–38, 240–42, 283n11 Student Savings Bank, 139, 277–78n77 students, Chinese: in England, 76, 270n52; in Europe, 266n75; in Japan, 42, 61, 72, 76, 266n75, 270n45 student self-governance, 134, 277n62 Student Society for National Salvation, 157, 283n11 study abroad: factions due to, 235; in late-Qing dynasty, 64–66, 74, 76, 266–67nn75,102; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 105, 273n95 study societies (xuehui), 22–23 Subao, 63, 65, 86, 274n118 Sugi, Eizaburo, 50 Su Jiarong, 138, 231 Su Manshu, 100 Sun Fuyuan, 205, 233 Sun Jia’nai: Boxer Rebellion and, 38; educational plan of, 27–31, 53; Jingshi daxuetang and, 34–36, 43, 47, 262n84; Official Book Depot and, 22–23 Sun Shuilin, 275–76nn17,55 Sun Yatsen: Cai Yuanpei and, 79, 84, 118, 231; imperial restoration campaigns and, 128; May Fourth era and, 156, 179, 180, 190, 279n22; post-1911 Revolution era and, 79, 84, 86, 97, 268n20; United Front and, 224, 231–34, 238; warlord governments and, 217, 220 Sun Yirang, 51 Tagore, Rabindranath, 219 Taiping Rebellion, 19–20, 41, 132

Index Taixue, 2, 7, 13, 16, 24, 62, 75, 113, 120, 258n7 Tang Dingzhi, 137 Tang Erhe, 61, 108, 117, 124, 173–74, 221–22 Tang Shaoyi, 84, 128 Tan Sitong, 24, 30 Tan Xihong, 219, 288n48 Tao Dun, 138, 202, 210–11, 234, 237–38, 242–43, 247 Tao Menghe: New Culture Movement and, 142, 162, 207–8; post–1911 Revolution era and, 108; publications of, 151, 233, 235; as university council member, 275–76nn17,55 Tao Xisheng, 102, 106, 109, 180, 238, 244 teachers’ college (Shifan guan), 46, 50–51, 53–55, 57, 62, 71, 74–76 teahouses, 212–13 “Ten Thousand Word Memorial,” 21 Thread of Talk (Yusi), 233–36, 239, 244–45 Thwing, Charles Franklin, 45 ti (essence), 28–33 Tiananmen Square, 2, 5–6, 161, 221 Tian Jiongjin, 186, 195, 199 Tianqiao, 203, 285n60 Tiger, The (Jiayin zazhi), 5, 98–100, 127, 130, 208, 224, 271nn67,69,74, 276n42 Tiger Daily (Jiayin rikan), 127, 275n34 ti-yong dualism, 29, 32 Tokyo University (Todai), 25–26, 45, 49–50, 108, 174, 264n34, 267n111, 270n45 tolerance, 123–25, 136, 153, 172, 241 Tolstoy, Leo, 135 Tongcheng scholars, 108–10, 124, 273n104 Tongcheng School, 47–50, 152–53, 155, 263–64nn24,25,30,33, 275n28 Tong Hangshi, 96 Tongwen Guan, 15–17, 27, 30, 35, 36–37, 43, 260nn15,16 translation bureau, 45, 47, 49, 59, 207, 263n15 Translators’ College (Yixue guan), 71, 80 Truth Society (Shishe), 135–36, 277nn65,69 tuition, 85, 272n77 Tu Ji, 51 “Twenty-one Demands Ultimatum” of Japan, 176, 236 uniforms, 59, 73 United Front, 224, 231–39

323 university club, 142–44 University Council, 247 university district, 143, 148–49, 278n4 vernacular Chinese, 129, 151–52, 154–55, 165, 167, 170–71, 190, 290n96 Vigorous Progress (Mengjin), 235, 239 Voitinsky, G., 194 Wakeman, Frederic, 40, 144 Wang Chonghui, 126, 221 Wang Dan, 252–53 Wang Daoyuan, 55, 58, 62 Wang Dechong, 240–41 Wang Fengzao, 267–68n111 Wang Guangqi, 195, 198 Wang Jieshi, 235 Wang Jingming, 248 Wang Jingwei, 98, 118, 126–27, 143, 271n65 Wang Jingxuan (pseud.), 152 Wang Jiuling, 236 Wang Kangnian, 47 Wang Kunlun, 198 Wang Lan, 198–99 Wang Lu, 136–37 Wang Mengzou, 99–100, 124, 271n69 Wang Shijie, 233 Wang Xinggong, 130, 142, 207 Wang Yangming, 17, 191 Wang Yuanfang, 124, 208 Wang Yunwu, 209 Wang Zheng, 196 Wang Zhouyao, 51 warlord governments, 115, 166, 173, 221, 224–28, 232–33, 242–47, 274n7 Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, 182 Weekly Review (Meizhou pinglun), 162–64, 175, 184 Weekly Review (Xinggi pinglun), 163, 190 Wei Jiangong, 110 weixin group, 22–23, 25 Weng Tonghe, 22, 31 Wenxuan literary style, 125, 152–54, 275n28 Wen Zongyu, 55, 275–76nn17 Western learning: Cai Yuanpei and, 117, 125; intellectuals and, 8–9, 259n22; in late-Qing dynasty, 42, 46–49, 51, 67, 69, 72, 86, 263n19; in May Fourth era, 158, 170–71; in nineteenth century, 13–21, 25–31, 259–62nn2,15,16,92; in wake of 1911 Revolution, 104–6

324 Whampoa Military Academy, 231, 233, 237, 238 Williams, Walter, 219 Wilson, Woodrow, 162 Wissenschaft, 81–82 women’s education, 51–52, 70, 197–201, 284nn45,46,50,53 women’s equality, 165, 172–73, 183, 195–96, 284n38 Woodside, Alexander, 13, 18, 23, 26 Woren, Grand Secretary, 15–16, 19 Workers’ Voice (Laodong yin), 194 World War I, 97, 161–62 Wu Changqing, 269n33 Wuchang Uprising, 77, 84 Wu Hongjia, 38 Wu Jinglian, 223, 267n107 Wu Mei, 130, 140 Wu Mi, 172 Wu Peifu, 227, 233 Wu Rulun, 27, 30, 42, 47–50, 107, 263–65nn9 Wu Ruonan, 198, 269n33 Wu Wosheng, 70 “Wuxu university,” 31–34 Wu Yu, 100, 211–12 Wu Zhihui, 98, 100, 118, 126–27, 143, 271n65, 274–76nn6,42 Xianqu (Pioneers), 226 Xiao Youmei, 136 Xia Yiqi, 107–8 Xia Yuanli, 93, 107–8, 117, 132, 270n52, 274–76nn4,55 Xie Shaomin, 177 Xie Wuliang, 100 Xin An, 200–201 Xinmin congbao (New People’s Miscellany), 42, 59, 60, 98 Xin Shenbao, 171 Xin shiji (New Century), 73 Xinwen zhoukan, 166, 280n51 Xinzheng Revolution, 43 Xi Zhen, 198 Xu Baohuang, 126, 139, 165–66, 208, 221, 280n49 Xu Beihong, 137 Xu Bingchang, 235 Xu Bingkun, 273n109 Xu Chanzhi, 199 Xu Chongqin, 104–5, 106, 273n100 Xu Deheng, 149, 160–61, 167–68, 196 Xu Guangping, 169 Xu Jingcheng, 35, 38, 43, 47, 262n97 Xu Qinwen, 149, 210–11 Xu Shichang, 173, 217, 267n107 Xu Shitong, 267n107

Index Xu Shouchang, 108, 110, 124 Xu Shuzheng, 153, 171, 178–79, 273n112 Xu Xiujun, 126 Xu Zhimo, 233 Yan Fu: Jingshi daxuetang and, 35, 42, 47–49, 59, 264n27; post–1911 Revolution era and, 82–87, 89, 94, 96, 106–7, 117, 268–69nn20,27 Yang Changji, 100, 130 Yanghu School, 50, 264n33 Yang Lianggong, 105 Yang Mo, 64 Yang Wenhui, 51 yangwu faction, 15, 21 Yang Zhensheng, 168 Yanjing University, 249, 290n113 Yan Xiangti, 206 Yao Guozhen, 267n107 Yao Nai, 49, 263–64nn24,25 Yao Wendong, 31 Yao Ying, 49 Yao Yonggai, 49, 107, 264n30, 273n112 Yao Yongpu, 49, 107, 264n30 Yao Yuanchu, 77 Ye, Weili, 10 Ye Gongzhuo, 44, 267n107 Yeh Wen-hsin, 10, 41, 105, 171, 208, 245, 258–59nn8,16,21 Ye Shengtao, 224 Yi, Prince, 30 Yi Baisha, 100 Yi Jiayue, 205 Yi Junzuo, 191, 204, 207 Yi Keyi, 160, 187 Young China (Shaonian Zhongguo), 198 Young China Association, 157, 161, 195 Young World (Shaonian shijie), 199 Youth Party, 237 Yuan Shikai: death of, 113, 115; dictatorship of, 126, 128; East Asian Culture Academy and, 48; imperial restoration campaign of, 77, 112–16, 129, 172; Jingshi daxuetang and, 59–60, 94, 117, 178, 193; post–1911 Revolution era and, 84, 86–88, 112, 268–69nn20,33, 274n118; Second Revolution and, 96, 97, 98; Zhang Shizhao and, 99, 271n74 Yuan Zhenying, 277n69 Yu Changlin, 75 Yu Dafu, 233 Yu Qichang, 76 Yu Shimei, 47 Yu Tongkui, 55, 59, 60, 62, 64–65, 73, 76, 275–76nn17,55,60

Index Yu Weiyi, 230 Yu Yue, 58 Zarrow, Peter, 115, 135, 277n63 zawen essay style, 162 Zeng Guangquan, 47 Zeng Guangrong, 264n27 Zeng Guofan, 19–20, 44, 47, 48, 263–64n25 Zhang Baixi: conservatives and, 59–60, 66; educational plan of, 43–53, 57, 67, 263–66nn9,19,27,83; student activism and, 62–63, 65, 266n75 Zhang Dachun, 276nn55,60 Zhang Dongsun, 271n65 Zhang Guotao, 124, 142, 149, 154, 187 Zhang Guruo, 185 Zhang Heling, 47, 50, 55, 63 Zhang Hengjia, 69, 70 Zhang Houdai, 281n68 Zhang Ji, 65, 143, 271n65 Zhang Rong, 64 Zhang Shanyang, 275n17 Zhang Shizhao: chancellorship of, 86–88, 91, 269n33; Discussion Group for European Affairs and, 98, 271n65; Fulfill the Promise Society and, 149; May Fourth era and, 161, 189, 283n18; as Minister of Education, 236, 238–39, 288–89nn66,67,76; National Protection Army and, 99, 115; New Culture Movement and, 128, 130, 132, 137, 141–42, 276n55; publications of, 63, 86–87, 92, 98–100, 127, 269–71nn29,30,67,69,74; Wu Ruonan and, 198, 269n33 Zhang Taiyan: cultural conservatives and, 58, 155; New Culture Movement and, 117, 120, 126, 171; vernacular Chinese and, 129; Zhang Shizhao and, 269n33; Zhejiangese scholars and, 107–13, 273–74nn104,118,121 Zhang Weici, 221 Zhang Ximan, 194 Zhang Xinglang, 275n17 Zhang Xuan, 170 Zhang Xueliang, 170 Zhang Xun, 77, 128–30, 275n36, 279n22

325 Zhang Yaoceng, 127, 267n107, 271n65 Zhang Yuanji, 36, 80, 126, 208, 209 Zhang Zhidong: academies and, 19–20, 21; educational plan of, 44, 59, 66–69, 72–73, 77, 83, 266nn82–85; Gu Hongming and, 51, 125; old age of, 75, 267n109; student activism and, 64; ti-yong dualism and, 29 Zhang Zongxiang, 51, 177–78, 264n36 Zhang Zuolin, 200, 233, 239, 242–44, 247, 251 Zhao Congfan, 47, 60 Zhejiangese scholars, 107–10, 116–18, 173, 235–36, 239, 273n109 Zhendan University, 41, 88 Zheng Guanying, 261n57 Zheng Peigang, 277n65 Zhengxuehui, 127, 275n32 Zheng Zhenduo, 204, 206–7, 209, 224, 243, 245 Zhili Clique, 200, 216, 220 Zhongshan Academy (Jiangsu), 19 Zhou Changxian, 205 Zhou Gengsheng, 219, 233, 235, 240 Zhou Shuqiao, 38 Zhou Shuren. See Lu Xun Zhou Sijing, 276n55 Zhou Zuoren: May Fourth era and, 174, 195; New Culture Movement and, 124, 126, 129, 131–32, 142, 154; post–1911 Revolution era and, 108, 110; publications of, 233, 236, 239, 240, 288n56; Zhang Taiyan and, 273n104 Zhu Jiahua, 130, 142, 219, 244, 249, 290n99 Zhu Jingnong, 221, 286n8 Zhu Qianzhi, 191, 192 Zhu Shen, 267n107 Zhu Wushan, 230 Zhu Xie, 235 Zhu Xilin, 64 Zhu Xiling, 276n55 Zhu Xizu, 108, 112, 131–32, 142, 235, 273n104 Zhu Zonglai, 142 Zongli yamen, 15, 27, 31, 34 Zou Daijun, 51 Zou Rong, 63 Zou Shuwen, 57, 58

Compositor: Indexer: Text: Display: Printer and Binder:

Binghamton Valley Composition Sharon Sweeney 10/13 Sabon Sabon Maple-Vail Manufacturing Group

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