1935, Hu Shi delivered a speech entitled "New Culture Movement and Education" in Hong Kong Overseas Chinese Education Association, and declared at the beginning that "I am still a layman in education and have no special research. However, we talk about the literary revolution and advocate the use of language and style. These problems are often related to education. It is often a problem we see, but education experts will not see it. " (1) Thus, we have an interest in research: What is the relationship between the literary revolution advocated by the pioneers of the May 4th New Culture Movement and education? What kind of educational problems did they see and put forward? What kind of discussion have you had? What do these discussions inspire us today? -This is exactly what this article is going to discuss.

Hu Shi's My Humble Opinion on Literary Improvement was published in New Youth, Volume 2, No.5, and published in 19 17+ 1, which put forward eight points of literary improvement, namely, what must be said should be substantial, not archaize people, speak grammar and not do inaction. Firstly, this paper puts forward that vernacular Chinese should be used instead of classical Chinese as a tool for literary writing, emphasizing that vernacular Chinese is "authentic in China literature and a necessary weapon for future literature", and "today's compositions and poems should adopt common sayings and vulgar characters. It is better to use the movable type of the twentieth century than to use the words that died three thousand years ago. It's better to use people who can't travel far and widely in the Qin, Han and Six Dynasties, and it's better to be a famous figure in the journey to the west. The other two emphases of the article are: First, it emphasizes that "words have substance", that is, it takes "emotion" and "thinking" as the "soul" of literature, and opposes the formalistic tendency of "sticking to the tone of words, having neither lofty thoughts nor sincere feelings". Secondly, it emphasizes that literary writing should get rid of "servility", "Don't write the poems of the ancients, just write my own poems" and "Everyone writes his own words to describe what he has seen and experienced with his own eyes. But it is hard to be true, but it is difficult to achieve the purpose of its portrait. ②

Hu Shi's article is recognized as the pioneering work of the May 4th literary revolution, which provides a strategic choice, that is, taking the "literary revolution" as the breakthrough of the new culture movement and the change of "literary form" as the breakthrough of the literary revolution. Hu Shi later said more clearly: "We believe that writing is the foundation of literature, so the first step of the literary revolution is to solve the problem of writing"; (3) "The revolutionary movement of China literature first requires the liberation of language, writing and style. The language of new literature is vernacular, and the style of new literature is free and informal. " The bondage of form prevents the spirit from developing freely and the good content from being fully expressed. If you want to have new content and new spirit, you must first break the shackles that bind the spirit. "Obviously, this is a liberation movement. Behind the liberation of writing style is the liberation of spirit and the freedom of thought.

Hu Shi's article triggered a continuous discussion about the literary revolution in New Youth, and later Chen Duxiu's On the Literary Revolution (Volume 2, No.6) and Qian's To Chen Duxiu (Volume 3, No.1 1 period) responded and developed it. We are interested that the original discussion was limited to "literature". Later, Liu Bannong discussed the definition of "literature" with Chen Duxiu in My View of Literary Improvement, and put forward the distinction between "literature" and "writing". He thought that "poetry, drama, novel, prose and historical biography" should be regarded as literature and "scientific applied writing", and Chen Duxiu emphasized his "literary text" and "applied text" in the annex. ⑤ Then, Qian issued an appeal that "applied writing needs to be improved urgently" in the communication of the fifth volume of New Youth, which led to Liu Bannong's article Professor of Applied Writing (volume 1 New Youth). In this way, the discussion of literary writing leads to the discussion of practical writing, or extends the requirements of literary revolution and literary liberation to the liberation of writing. For example, Liu Bannong and Qian repeatedly emphasized in their articles that "when we do things, we should never forget that there is an me everywhere, and so is our composition. If you ignore yourself and just learn from the ancients, you are the descendants of the ancients; If you learn from today's people, you are today's slaves. If you don't want to be descendants and slaves of others, you should start by breaking superstition. " "Words are the heart, and words are the representatives of words. We can make full use of our heart's will and not be so flexible and bound by this meaningless death format. 6 "Today's composition, no matter how deep, always needs to be understood by others, so it is better to tell the truth. "⑥" You don't have to use honest articles to show that articles can be done by everyone. Making a fuss is just writing out the thoughts in your head or telling what's outside directly. Later, Qian said directly to the younger generation in Random Thoughts: "I want to tell young students that you are' people' in the 20th century, not' chatterboxes' of the ancients. We want to make a big fuss, not because there are not enough ancient prose, but to add a few articles for him; Because we want to write what we mean. So write your own articles in your own words. How to say our words and how to do our articles. " Pet-name ruby in the same issue of New Youth also published a letter from readers, discussing the "new style" to be established in the May 4th New Culture Movement, and proposing that its most basic feature is "using the present meaning, saying the present words, writing the present words and doing the present style". [10] Hu Shi also summed up his "eight things" as "four things", that is, "you should have something to say before you speak" and "you should have something to say; Just say what you said ","I want to say my own words, not others', "people of any era say what they say". [1 1] Eight years later, in his speech at the YMCA in Hong Kong, Lu Xun talked about the goal of the May 4th literary revolution, which was also summarized as "to say modern, own words; Speak your thoughts and feelings directly in living vernacular "; And called on the youth to "first turn China into a vocal China". Speak boldly, speak bravely, forget all interests, push away the ancients and publish your true words. ""Only a real voice can move people in China and the world; You must have a real voice to live in the world with people in the world. " [12] In this way, the pioneers of the May 4th New Culture Movement put their ideas of enlightenment (liberation) in writing and literature into practice as "speak the words of modern China people, not those of the ancients and foreigners", "speak your own words, not those of others" and "make a real voice, and don't make a false one of concealment and deception.

In this way, their concern for education, especially primary and secondary education, is inevitable: education is the key link to realize the above enlightenment requirements. Therefore, we also noticed the subtitle of Liu Bannong's article "Professor of Applied Literature", which indicated that he wanted to "discuss with the teachers in the education field and the comrades in the literary revolution", and put forward a question with his unique lightness and sharpness: "Students in schools now often study for several years, and they can write such cliché articles as" Today's husband ","Our husband "and" The best in the world ",but they can't write fluent letters home. Who did it? " Later, New Youth, Volume VI, Issue 1, also published a letter from readers, saying that he "entered primary school at the age of seven, advanced primary school at the age of eleven, normal school at the age of fifteen, and became a primary school teacher at the age of twenty-one", deeply feeling that "most of China's youth education can't get rid of slavery". Another middle school student wrote to emphasize the disadvantages of education in China at that time: "Every time I read a text, the teacher always said the words' Ruofu' and' Ranze', and I did not hesitate to explain them repeatedly. I often spend an hour in class, that is, I can talk such empty talk; But after listening for a long time, I still can't figure it out. In the autumn of the year before last, an old gentleman who talked about Tongcheng School specially selected Su Dongpo's and Gui Youguang's articles, and added a comment of about 1,000 words after each article; I didn't pay much attention to the text of this article when I explained it, but I took this comment and said it in detail. The more he talked with relish, the less we understood. Therefore, the homework that students hate most is Chinese. I don't think so alone. " This letter also copied a "Rhetoric Examination of Chinese Department of a certain school", with a title of more than 420 words. Editor Chen Duxiu sighed with emotion after reading it: "This test question is not the topic of Chinese examination in modern schools, but also the old-fashioned question in ancient examination rooms." "I think more than half of the students in the class don't know what this topic is asking." "Today, I realize that most middle school students' compositions are still not fluent. Chinese teaching in this class is really misleading children. "[13] Here, in fact, there has been a call for the reform of Chinese education in primary and secondary schools. Liu Bannong's "Professor of Applied Literature" is, to some extent, a reform plan for Chinese education in primary and secondary schools put forward by his colleagues in "New Youth". In his article, Liu Bannong compares "people who value the past but should be remolded now" with "people who value the past". The most important thing is that in the past, the old Chinese education was aimed at "learning from the ancients" and "attaching to the ancients" (that is, the so-called "writing carries the Tao" and "speaking on behalf of the saints"), but now the new Chinese education emphasizes "taking its roots". This can be said to have caught the key. Liu Wen also put forward the goal of new Chinese education in very plain language: "Only in a very short time can students read books that people should read and books that they must read in their careers;" "Everyone can write what people should and must do in their own profession." He emphasized that there is a spirit of "seeking truth from facts" behind this goal. Liu Wen put forward specific opinions on the standards of selecting essays, teaching methods, composition requirements, principles of setting questions, and correction. Its main point is: "whoever writes naturally and is close to the language, choose who;" Don't choose those who are influenced by melodrama, those who are extremely interested in imitating the ancients, those who are profound and eccentric and deceive the world, those who are too stubborn, divorced from modern life, or superstitious about ghosts and gods and don't get rid of theocracy; Writing should have independent spirit, broad vision, don't fall into the trap of predecessors, don't advocate the words of one family, don't make the words of Taoism and Zen, and "keeping a clear mind is the first interest of writing" and so on. It is not difficult to see that the basic guiding ideology of this reform plan is to consciously infiltrate and implement the enlightenment spirit and concept of the aforementioned literary revolution in Chinese education. Later, Chen Duxiu wrote an article entitled "What is the New Culture Movement? "[14] In fact, both the literary revolution and China's educational reform, as an aspect of the educational revolution, constitute an organic part of the May 4th New Culture Movement, and their communication is inevitable.

"New Youth" published Hu Shi's "My Humble Opinion on Literary Improvement" in Volume 2, No.5 (191), and advocated using vernacular Chinese as a necessary weapon for future literature. In Volume 3,No. 1 (19 13, 1), the news that "a seminar on Chinese is going on" was published, and the "Request for Membership" led by Cai Yuanpei was published, claiming that "colleagues and others think that Chinese textbooks must be written in vernacular, which is definitely not suspicious". This is related to the realization of the literary revolutionary goal of "replacing classical Chinese with vernacular Chinese", which is hotly debated in New Youth. In the editor's postscript of Volume 3, Issue 2 of Communication, Chen Duxiu proposed: "There are three elements in the implementation of vernacular literature. First, there is a relatively unified national language. Secondly, it is necessary to create a China language code. Secondly, most people in this country write books in Mandarin. This is not easy, nor can it be done overnight. " There is no mention of textbooks here. Volume 3, No.3, the reader wrote to suggest that the book company "invite them to hire people who are good at Chinese studies and have new literary concepts to engrave articles from ancient times to the present, regardless of the prose rhyme of classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese, but they must be desirable, that is, adopted into the book"; Another reader's letter published in the same period put forward: "It is easy to destroy everything, but difficult to build. I hope that Mr. Wang's discussion will be a little more positive in the future. On the one hand, how to compile school textbooks and how to decide self-study books are urgently needed by researchers today. " [15] [16] Chen Duxiu's emphasis on "mandarin study" is directly related to the proposal of "three elements" in vernacular Chinese, which was actually the opinion of a considerable number of scholars at that time, that is, the standard of "unifying mandarin" should be established through mandarin study, then compiled into "mandarin code" and then extended to specific writing practice. It was Hu Shi who challenged the idea of establishing and popularizing Putonghua. He put forward another viewpoint in "On the Literary Revolution of Construction" published in the 4th issue of New Youth (19 15 08 04). He summed up the "purpose" of the literary revolution as ten Chinese characters: "literature in national language, national language of literature", that is, on the one hand, we should use national language (vernacular) as "literature in national language", on the other hand, only through the creation of national language and literature can we establish a unified language (national language) of a truly modern nation-state. In response to the above views of most scholars such as Chen Duxiu, he pointed out: "Mandarin cannot be created by only a few linguists; It is not just a few Chinese textbooks and a few Chinese dictionaries. To be a Mandarin, we must first be a Mandarin literature. Who wants to learn Mandarin from Mandarin textbooks and dictionaries? Therefore, although Mandarin textbooks and dictionaries are very important, they are by no means sharp tools for making Mandarin. The really effective and powerful Putonghua textbooks are the documents of Putonghua. It's novels, poems and plays in Mandarin. The day when novels, poems and dramas in Mandarin are popularized is the time when Mandarin in China is established. " [17] In the exchange and discussion with a reader in the fourth volume of the fifth issue of New Youth, Hu Shi further elaborated his thoughts. This paper discusses the problem of "the procedure of literary reform". This reader puts forward: "To implement the new role, we must start from the university" and start from the recruitment of the university. "If you want to write in the vernacular, then it is natural for middle schools to pay attention to the vernacular. In primary schools, because middle schools have the motivation to innovate, they can be bold. " Hu Shi believes that this "is not something that a few people can stipulate by tough means". "I mean, I think the order is to vigorously promote vernacular literature. First, we should create some valuable mandarin literature and cultivate a national psychology of believing in new literature, then we can expect the popularization of reform. The key to popularization lies in "school education", "starting from the lower grades" and "writing textbooks for primary and secondary schools in Mandarin". At the same time, Hu Shi pointed out, "At present, new literature has not yet developed, and Mandarin textbooks have not yet been established. The only way to save the emergency is to encourage primary and secondary school students to read novels. "[18] shows that there are two key links in Hu Shi's thought. The first is to create a vibrant vernacular literature, the so-called "Putonghua literature", and then introduce this newly created vernacular literature into the Putonghua textbooks of primary and secondary schools in large quantities, becoming a new model of Putonghua, which is first popularized among primary and secondary school students. After the accumulation and transmission from generation to generation, vernacular Chinese can truly take root among the people and become a veritable "mandarin".

Hu Shi's new ideas soon had a great influence. The compilation of vernacular Chinese textbooks has once become a hot topic in New Youth and education. The second issue of New Youth, Volume 5, published the discussion between Qian and Liu Bannong, and clearly stated that "Chinese language must be changed to Mandarin. Children under the age of ten must read books in vernacular Chinese; What' ancient prose', don't read a word. " [19] Then Hu Shi put forward in a letter No.3 in Volume 5: "Now all textbooks, from national schools to universities, must be written in Mandarin." [20] "New Youth" Volume 6 No.2 published a letter from readers, proposing that "young people who are not infected by old literature should have pity on him and prevent him from being infected again. I think it is urgent to write new literature textbooks as soon as possible to reform new literature. " In his reply, Qian said: "My colleagues have agreed to the compilation of new literature textbooks, and we are working on it. But this is not easy to do. Not only the article has to be changed, but also the thinking has to be changed, so there is not much achievement for a while. " [2 1] The new literature textbook that Qian's colleagues are studying here refers to the vernacular textbook "Mandarin Reader" compiled by Comte School under the auspices of Cai Yuanpei; [22] This is the spring of 19 18. Cai Yuanpei called the teachers of Comte School to hold a seminar on education. The decision made at the meeting, the participants said: "The textbook discussed today is not designed for Comte school, but for all schools in the country." Some scholars believe that this indicates that the discussion on textbook reform will enter a "substantive" and "new stage". [23] A whole year later, in April of 19 19, the Preparatory Committee for the Unification of Putonghua held its inaugural meeting. As a subsidiary organ of the Ministry of Education, the Committee naturally attracts special attention. At this meeting, Zhou Zuoren, Hu Shi, Qian, Liu Bannong, etc. This paper puts forward a suggestion on the method of unifying Putonghua, and holds that "since the unification of Putonghua should begin in primary schools, all kinds of textbooks used in primary schools should be used as the base camp for spreading Putonghua, among which Chinese is particularly important." Now it is planned to change "Chinese Reader" into "Putonghua Reader", and all schools in the country will use Putonghua without miscellaneous words, and primary school students will be in senior grades. [24] In this way, the vernacular Chinese has entered the operation within the national system from the appeal of the people, and the time is getting more and more mature. When New Youth 10/9191was published in10/,Qian pointed out in a more urgent tone: "It is really urgent to improve Chinese textbooks for primary schools. This ancient prose is a modern language. On the one hand, it certainly created a large number of "national literature" by relying on a group of new writers; On the one hand, it is also relying on primary schools to switch to' Chinese textbooks'. If all primary school students can speak Mandarin, it is not difficult to promote Mandarin. " Interestingly, in this exchange, Qian specifically pointed out: "Several good vernacular poems, new style poems and Lu Xun's novels in New Youth are the achievements of colleagues in vernacular literature", while "Zhou Jun's translation of foreign novels" is "a new era in China's translation field in recent years". [25] Obviously, in his view, these achievements in vernacular literature are all qualified to enter vernacular textbooks. Two weeks later, that is,1919191907, Cai Yuanpei gave a speech on "the future of Chinese" at Beijing Women's Teachers College, pointing out that "the most important problem of Chinese is the competition between vernacular Chinese and classical Chinese. I think the vernacular school will definitely prevail in the future. " [26] This prediction was quickly confirmed: 1920 1, the Ministry of Education officially ordered the whole country: "Since this autumn, all schools in the country will first change the Chinese language into a stylistic language to achieve the same effect. "And to amend the relevant laws and regulations of the school by ministerial order. In April of the same year, the Ministry of Education issued a notice stipulating that all textbooks written in classical Chinese should be abolished before the end of 1922, requiring schools to gradually adopt the approved style textbooks, and other subject textbooks should be changed to styles accordingly. [27] At the same time as the announcement issued by the Ministry of Education, the Commercial Press published the New Chinese Textbook (eight volumes), which is the first Chinese textbook for primary schools in China. Then, the Commercial Press published the Model of Middle School Vernacular Writing (four volumes), which is the first middle school Chinese textbook in China. Since then, the number of Chinese textbooks has greatly increased. According to the previous review reports of the National Language and Character Unification Committee, 173 Chinese textbooks passed the review on 1920 and18 on 192 1. [28] The status of vernacular textbooks has finally been officially confirmed.

This is really a period of great historical changes: from theoretical design and discussion; Appeal to the media, discuss and form public opinion; [29] But in just a few years, starting from the May 4th period, China's primary and secondary education reform, as well as the whole education reform, took a decisive step, as Hu Shi said: "This is the first major event in decades. Its impact and results are difficult for us to calculate in advance now. But we can say that this order has promoted educational innovation in China for at least 20 years. " [30] Its significance has actually gone beyond the scope of education. It is not only an epoch-making event in the development history of modern Chinese in China, but also in the development history of modern literature in China. In a sense, it is the most substantial and decisive achievement of the May 4th literary revolution. Not to mention its far-reaching influence: the modern literature created by the May 4th literary revolution really took root among the people by entering primary and secondary school textbooks; At that time, unexpected results were achieved: vernacular Chinese entered the classroom as a carrier of new ideas and became a tool for young people to think, express and communicate. This is an unprecedented spiritual liberation, and the repressed creativity has been released as never before. As Hu Shi said, in a few short years, "all the young people in the country have become active. Not only college students, but also middle school students have to run some small newspapers to express their opinions. As long as they find a movable type printing machine anywhere, they will use it to publish tabloids. If they can't find the printing machine, they will use mimeograph. " [3 1] Mao Dun talked about the grand occasion of "the prosperity of young literary groups and small literary periodicals" in the series "Introduction to New Literature in China" 1922 to 1925, including their teachers, many of whom were sponsored by middle school students and normal students, such as Jixian County, Hebei Province. My sister's search and Yulin's search run by Yulin Middle School in Shaanxi Province, Unknown Writers' Society of Nanjing No.4 Middle School, Flowers in Spring published by Chunshe of Xuzhou Xu Dong Middle School, Knowledge published by Sunrise Society of Ningbo No.4 Middle School, Chenguang Literature Society of Jinshan Middle School in Chaozhou, Jiming Society of Changsha No.1 Middle School, Star Literature and New Youth published by South Sichuan Normal School. In his reply, Hu Shi said, "There is a middle school student in Beijing who wrote an article and was quite dissatisfied with Kong Qiu. Her husband was furious and added a lot of them. There were eight big characters in them:' Speech is absurd and crazy'; And he said,' it's a pity that there is such talent and such a pen battle, which is not a formal article! "Poor thing!" Hu slightly changed the old gentleman's comment on writing and gave it to the young friends of the new society: "You are so talented and have such a pen battle. I hope you will try not to become a mere formality; I really hope not to be afraid of the criticism of "absurd and crazy speech"; I hope I can be proud of these eight words from time to time! "In fact, middle school students who are awakened and full of talents because of the use of vernacular Chinese are almost all over the country. The more remote areas, the greater the role of middle school students, and often become the center of local new ideas and new cultures. As described by Mao Dun, this is "like the flood of the Nile, followed by a large group of promising young writers, who have developed their skills in the torrent of crazy literary activities, and their appearance has made the second half of the first' decade' in the history of new literature colorful!" [32] This is a benign interaction: new literature not only nurtured the younger generation, but also cultivated reserve forces for its own development, thus gaining new vitality.

Forerunners know that in order to make the Chinese primary and secondary education reform which has taken a decisive step develop healthily and continuously, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of Chinese education theory and make the education reform truly based on science. Therefore, the No.8 1 (65438+September 0920) and No.4 (65438+September 0920, 65438+February 1) of New Youth prominently published Hu Shi's Chinese Professor in Middle School and Zhou Zuoren's Children's Literature.

For the convenience of narration, let's talk about Zhou Zuoren's children's literature first. This is his speech at Beijing Comte School. At the beginning, he stated: "Today's children's literature, in other words, is' primary school literature'", so he wanted to discuss literature education in primary schools. There are two points worthy of attention in Zhou Zuoren's exposition. First of all, he took "how to understand children" as the basis of his discussion. At the beginning, he suggested that "people in the past could not understand children correctly." They don't regard him as a shrinking adult and try to regard the Bible as a biography, but treat him as an incomplete villain, saying that children know something and ignore him. Only recently did I know that children are physically different from adults, but they are still complete individuals with their own internal and external lives. The life of childhood for more than 20 years, on the one hand, is the preparation for adult life, but on the other hand, it also has its own independent significance and value. " What is emphasized here is that "children are human beings and complete individuals with their own independent meanings and values", which is the basic concept of the May 4th New Culture Movement. That is to say, Zhou Zuoren applied and extended the May 4th "Discovery of Man and Personality" to primary education, emphasizing that "children's education should be provided to him according to the needs of his internal and external life, so that his life can be enriched". On the premise of the sound development of children's individual lives, the significance of raising the reform of primary and secondary education (including Chinese education reform) to a new ideological and theoretical level cannot be underestimated. In Zhou Zuoren's view, literature education in primary schools must also be based on understanding and respecting children. Accordingly, he proposed that "proper literature education in primary schools has three functions: (1) it conforms to children's instinctive interests and tastes; (2) Cultivate and guide those interests; (3) Arouse new interests and interests that have never existed before. It also advocates the selection and arrangement of teaching materials and corresponding teaching methods according to the procedures of children's physical and psychological development. These opinions have not lost their meaning until today; More importantly, it enlightens us that if we really want to base the reform of Chinese education on "understanding children scientifically", we must have the full cooperation and joint efforts of many disciplines-not only pedagogy, but also psychology, physiology, anthropology (Zhou Zuoren's article covers these aspects) and so on.

Hu Shi's "Middle School Chinese Professor" also declared himself a "layman" at the beginning to talk about middle school Chinese education; However, he stressed that "laymen are sometimes useful": "experts" educators often "can't jump out of the scope of customary law" and "can't help being bound by prejudice"; And "people who watch outside the door, because of their freer thinking, may sometimes provide some fresh ideas and unexpected reference materials"-of course, that's just "reference". At the end of the article, Hu Shi also stressed that his opinion is "completely ideal", so he "hopes that the current and future middle school educators will give me an opportunity to experiment and let me use experiments to prove which part of this ideal plan is feasible, which part is not feasible and which part should be revised". -Adhere to ideals and adopt a scientific attitude towards experiments; Not only insist on independent thinking, not bound by prejudice, boldly put forward "fresh opinions", but also be ready to "correct" their own opinions according to the experimental results: all these show the demeanor, democracy and scientific spirit of the May 4th generation. Some of Hu Shi's thoughts will be discussed later, and we will discuss them here. First, his criticism of the old Chinese education focused on "students are not allowed to express their thoughts freely", and "the ideal standard of middle school Chinese" was first defined as "everyone can express their thoughts freely in Putonghua (vernacular)-composition, speech and conversation-and can understand them fluently without grammatical mistakes". In this way, the reform of Chinese education in primary and secondary schools has been promoted to the height of "free expression of ideas", and its significance is no less than Zhou Zuoren's emphasis on "sound development of human personality". Another noteworthy aspect of Hu Shi's article is his emphasis on "teaching method". He put forward the idea of replacing "speaking and reading" with "reading". No matter the teaching of Chinese or ancient Chinese, he emphasized students' self-preview and reading, classroom discussion and extracurricular self-study under the guidance of teachers. In composition, he also emphasized that students should choose their own topics and collect their own materials. "Students should be encouraged to write long letters, take systematic notes and express their opinions freely", and he especially advocated it. Behind this is a change in educational concept: from "teacher-centered" to "student-centered", from "external compulsory indoctrination" to "cultivation of conscious learning ability". One of the important keys is still to correctly understand students and believe in their potential great learning ability and creativity; Hu Shi shouted for this: "Please don't treat middle school students as children. One of the major drawbacks of the current academic system is that students' knowledge-seeking ability is too low. " [33]

Hu Shi's article also caused a heated discussion. One of the most important is Liang Qichao's speech "Teaching Method of Composition Above Middle School" in July and August of 1922. [34] As the commentator said, part of this speech is aimed at Hu Shi's "middle school Chinese professor", so there is a saying of "the dispute of middle school Chinese education 80 years ago". [35] From the full text, many of Liang Qichao's views have something in common with Hu Shi and the aforementioned "New Youth", such as emphasizing that "the role of the article is to convey one's own thoughts to others"-"What should be conveyed"? /ca & gt；