Hu Shih

Hu received his fundamental education in Anhui (his homeland) and Shanghai. Being one of the national scholarship, Hu was sent to study in Cornell University in the United States and later Columbia University. He was greatly influenced by his professor, John Dewey, and became a lifelong advocate of pragmentic evolutionary change. He started to write for New Youths from 1917, and quickly gained much attention and influenced many people. He got his Ph.D on philosophy in 1917 and went back to lecture in Peking University. Being the editor of the New Youth, Hu became one of the leading and influential intellectual during the May Fourth Movement and later New Culture Movement[?]. He quit New Youth in the 1920s and published several political newspapers and journals with his friends. His most important contribution was promotion of vernacular literature (known as baihua) in replace of classic literature. He was ambassador of Republic of China to the United States of America (1938-1942), chancellor of Peking University (1946-1948), and after 1958 president of the Academia Sinica[?] in Taiwan.

See Hu Shih, Living Philosophies and Li Ao's Biography of Hu Shih