Also known as Ming Tangsheng · Zi Hongming
Gu Hongming, born Gu Tangsheng with the courtesy name Hongming, was born in 1857 in Penang, British Malaya, to a family from Tong'an in Fujian. Sent to Europe as a boy, he took an MA at the University of Edinburgh in 1877 and studied further in Germany and France. In 1885 he joined Zhang Zhidong's staff as secretary for foreign affairs, a post he held for more than twenty years, during which he published English translations of the Analects and the Doctrine of the Mean. His English book The Spirit of the Chinese People (Chunqiu dayi), published in 1915, defended Confucian ethics and old customs and found many readers in Germany. In the early Republic he taught English literature at Peking University, still wearing his queue and old-style gown, and he died in Beijing in 1928.
Records
His learning aimed at righteous principle and the way
Late Qing and early RepublicThe Draft History of the Qing, in an appended biography, says Gu Tangsheng, courtesy name Hongming, from Tongan, was schooled in Britain as a child. At thirty he turned to Chinese learning, probing the Four Books and Five Classics, translating the Four Books and writing on the Spring and Autumn and on ritual. His learning aimed at righteous principle and the way. He said that Europe and America rely on force and attend to the outer, while China relies on ritual teaching and cultivates the inner.
References (1)
Qing
Republican Era