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A Talk with Hu Shih*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

The distinguished Chinese scholar Hu Shih died on February 24. Born in 1891 and educated at Cornell and Columbia, Dr. Hu will always be remembered as the apostle of the literary revolution that led to the replacement of classical Chinese by the vernacular (pai-hua) as the literary medium. During the twenties and thirties, he held important academic posts including that of Dean of the College of Arts at the National Peking University during 1930–37. During much of the war (1938–42), he was his country's ambassador in Washington, but later returned to academic life as Chancellor of the Peking National University (1945–49). A disciple of Dewey, Dr. Hu had remained faithful to liberalism and pragmatism when many of his colleagues turned to Marxism, and when the Communists took over he left China. Because of their great influence, his ideas were selected by the Communists as a prime object of attack during the early fifties in their campaign to remould the intellectuals. After living in the United States for a number of years, Dr. Hu settled in Formosa where he was appointed President of the Academia Sinica in 1958.

Type
China and the Balkans
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1962

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References

* This is a brief report of a talk I had with Dr. Hu one Saturday in the spring of 1959. The interview took place in his residence at Nankang, the site of the Academia Sinica in Formosa, and lasted from ten in the morning to three in the afternoon, with a one-hour break at noon for lunch.