Jottings from the Granite Studio

“This age is one in which the entire world is developing communications. In the past, Chinese people viewed our country as all under heaven, and Westerners likewise thought Europe was the world. Today things are gradually moving forward; Chinese people already know there is a so-called Western civilization, and Westerners, even though our country is weak and has learning and customs that they look upon with disfavor, cannot but submit that we constitute part of the world.

If there were a worldwide exhibition, our country’s products would have to be displayed there; if there were a university, which made every effort to encompass all the world’s teachings, then our language and history would constitute a department; if there were a large library full of books, then titles from our country would be among them; if there were a museum that collected speciality items in order to bring humanity’s true face to light, then beautiful and ordinary items from our country would have to be gathered there.

This is the proof that the world has become more integrated.”

Cai Yuanpei, 1914

Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, born this week in 1868, was a classically-trained scholar of great achievement, having been appointed to the prestigious Hanlin Academy at a mere 26. Having exhausted his work in the Chinese classics, Cai traveled to Europe four years later to study with the German scholar Karl Gottfried Lamprecht at the University of Leipzig.

Believing strongly in education as the means to transform Chinese society, Cai went on to become the chancellor of Peking University in 1916. It was Cai who hired for the faculty such notables of the New Culture Movement as Chen Duxiu (editor of the influential magazine New Youth), Li Dahzao, and Hu Shi. Cai was committed to the university, his students, and educating each generation to face a globally integrated world and while he was not Peking University’s first chancellor, he was certainly the most influential in the early history of the school. A statue of Cai Yuanpei can be found next to one of the many footpaths leading down to the campus landmark/lovers’ lane known as Weiming Hu.
****************************
Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, “Xuefeng zazhi fakan ci” 学风杂志发刊词 (Foreword for Winds of Learning), in Cai Yuanpei quanji 蔡元培全集 (Collected Works of Cai Yuanpei), ed. Gao Pingshu, 2: 335 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988), Quoted in Timothy B. Weston, “The Founding of the Imperial University” in Rethinking the Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China. Peter Zarrow and Rebecca E. Karl eds. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 123.