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Cai Yuanpei

Hanlin scholar turned revolutionary who became the Republic's first education minister, opened Peking University to all schools of thought and founded Academia Sinica

Also known as Zi Heqing

Cai Yuanpei, courtesy name Heqing, styled Jiemin, came from Shanyin, now Shaoxing, in Zhejiang and was born in January 1868. He passed the metropolitan examination in 1892 and joined the Hanlin Academy, but after the reforms of 1898 collapsed he left office to teach in his home province. In 1904 he organised the Restoration Society in Shanghai and became its president, joined the Revolutionary Alliance the next year, and from 1907 studied at the University of Leipzig. In January 1912 he became minister of education in the provisional government at Nanjing, and as president of Peking University from 1917 he declared the university open to every school of thought, bringing in teachers such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi and Li Dazhao. He founded Academia Sinica in 1928 and served as its president until his death in Hong Kong in March 1940.

Life and times

  1. 1868 CEBornQingRepublican Era
  2. 1940 CEDied

Records

Minister of Education and president of Peking University

Early Republic to the National Government

The biography by Xia Jingguan says that after the 1911 Revolution, when the Nanjing provisional government was set up, Cai Yuanpei returned as Minister of Education, and later came back to serve as president of Peking University. He saw the university as a school embracing all fields of learning; any school of thought with grounds for its views and sound reasoning was admitted and left to develop freely. Under the National Government he served as head of the Daxueyuan (University Council) and of the Academia Sinica.

References (1)