Editing Hu Shih (section)

== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Hu Shih was born on 17 December 1891, in [[Shanghai]] to Hu Chuan ({{zhi|t=胡傳}}), and his third wife Feng Shundi ({{zhi|t=馮順弟}}).<ref name="O'Neill2022">{{Cite book |last=O'Neill |first=Mark |title=China's Great Liberal of the 20th Century – Hu Shih: A Pioneer of Modern Chinese Language |publisher=Sanlian Bookstore |location=Hong Kong |year=2022 |isbn=978-962-04-4918-5 |page=18}}</ref> Hu Chuan was a tea merchant who became a public servant, serving in northern China, [[Hainan]], and [[Taiwan]]. During their marriage, Feng Shun-di was younger than some of Hu Chuan's children.<ref name="O'Neill2022" /> After Hu Shih's birth, Hu Chuan moved to Taiwan to work in 1892, where his wife and Hu Shih joined him in 1893. Shortly before Hu Chuan's death in 1895, his wife Feng and the young Hu Shih left Taiwan for their ancestral home in [[Anhui]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grieder |first1=Jerome |title=Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917–1937 |year=1970 |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=3–8}}</ref>

In January 1904, when Hu was 11 years old, his mother arranged his marriage to Chiang Tung-hsiu ({{zhi|c=江冬秀}}).<ref name="Jolly2001">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Jolly |first=Margaretta |title=Encyclopedia of Life Writing: Autobiographical and Biographical Forms |volume=I: A–K |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn |year=2001 |isbn=1-57958-232-X |location=London |page=442}}</ref> In the same year, Hu and an elder brother moved to Shanghai seeking a "modern" education.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mair |first1=Victor H. |title=Chinese Lives: The people who made a civilization |year=2013 |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-25192-8 |page=208}}</ref>

=== Academic career ===
Hu became a "national scholar" through funds appropriated from the [[Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program]].<ref name="Jolly2001" /> On 16 August 1910, he was sent to study agriculture at [[Cornell University]] in the United States.<ref name="Chou2022">{{Cite book |last1=Chou |first1=Chih-Ping |title=Power of Freedom: Hu Shih's Political Writings |last2=Lin |first2=Carlos |publisher=University of Michigan Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-0-472-07526-3 |page=22}}</ref> In 1912, he changed his major to philosophy and literature, and was elected to [[Phi Beta Kappa]]. He was also a member and later a president of the Cosmopolitan Club, an international student organization.<ref name="Chou2022" /> While at Cornell, Hu led a campaign to promote the newer, easier to learn [[Written vernacular Chinese|Modern Written Chinese]] which helped spread literacy in China.<ref name="Friedlander">{{cite news |last1=Friedlander |first1=Blaine |title=Residence hall names honor McClintock, Hu, Cayuga Nation |url=https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/03/residence-hall-names-honor-mcclintock-hu-cayuga-nation |access-date=27 June 2023 |work=Cornell Chronicle |publisher=Cornell University |date=23 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605063504/https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/03/residence-hall-names-honor-mcclintock-hu-cayuga-nation |archive-date=5 June 2023 |location=Ithaca, New York}}</ref> He also helped found Cornell's extensive [[Cornell University Library|library]] collections of East Asian books and materials.<ref name="Friedlander" />

After receiving his undergraduate degree, he went to study philosophy at [[Teachers College, Columbia University]], in New York City, where he was influenced by his professor, [[John Dewey]], and started literary experiments.{{sfn|Egan|2017}} Hu became Dewey's translator and a lifelong advocate of [[pragmatism|pragmatic evolutionary change]], helping Dewey in his 1919–1921 lectures series in China. Hu returned to lecture in [[Peking University]]. During his tenure there, he received support from [[Chen Duxiu]], editor of the influential journal ''[[New Youth]]'', quickly gaining much attention and influence. Hu soon became one of the leading and influential intellectuals during the [[May Fourth Movement]] and later the [[New Culture Movement]].

Hu quit ''New Youth'' in the 1920s and published several political newspapers and journals with his friends. His most important contribution was the promotion of [[vernacular Chinese]] in literature to replace [[Classical Chinese]], which was intended to make it easier for the ordinary person to read.<ref name="Luo">Luo, Jing (2004). Over a Cup of Tea: An Introduction to Chinese Life and Culture. University Press of America. {{ISBN|0761829377}}</ref> Hu Shih once said, "A dead language can never produce a living literature."{{sfn|Bary|Lufrano|2000|p=362}} The significance of this for Chinese culture was great{{snd}}as [[John King Fairbank|John Fairbank]] put it, "the tyranny of the classics had been broken."<ref>{{cite book |first=John King |last=Fairbank |year=1979 |orig-year=1948 |title=The United States and China |url=https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesch1979fair |url-access=registration |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, MA |pages=[https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesch1979fair/page/232 232]–233, 334}}</ref> Hu devoted a great deal of energy to rooting his linguistic reforms in China's traditional culture rather than relying on imports from the West. As his biographer Jerome Grieder put it, Hu's approach to China's "distinctive civilization" was "thoroughly critical but by no means contemptuous."<ref>Jerome B. Grieder, ''Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917–1937'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 161–162. ACLS Humanities E-Book. URL: http://www.humanitiesebook.org/</ref> For instance, he studied Chinese classical novels, especially the 18th century novel ''[[Dream of the Red Chamber]]'', as a way of establishing the vocabulary for a modern standardized language.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/features.php?searchterm=019_vale.inc&issue=019 |title=Vale: David Hawkes, Liu Ts'un-yan, Alaistair Morrison |publisher=China Heritage Quarterly of the Australian National University}}</ref> His Peking University colleague [[Wen Yuan-ning]] dubbed Hu a ''[[Philosophe]]'' for his humanistic interests and expertise.<ref>Wen Yuan-ning, and others. [https://www.cambriapress.com/pub.cfm?bid=707 ''Imperfect Understanding: Intimate Portraits of Modern Chinese Celebrities'']. Edited by Christopher Rea (Amherst, MA: Cambria, 2018), pp. 41–44.</ref>

Hu was among the New Culture Movement reformers who welcomed [[Margaret Sanger]]'s 1922 visit to China. He personally translated her speech delivered at Beijing National University which stressed the importance of birth control. Periodicals ''The Ladies' Journal'' and ''The Women's Review'' published Hu's translation.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rodriguez |first=Sarah Mellors |url= |title=Reproductive realities in modern China: birth control and abortion, 1911–2021 |year=2023 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-00-902733-5|page=24}}</ref>

He was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1932 and the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1936.<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 February 2023 |title=Shih Hu |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/shih-hu |access-date=30 May 2023 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Hu+Shih&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=30 May 2023 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

=== Public service ===
Hu was the Republic of China's [[List of ambassadors of China to the United States|ambassador to the United States]] from 1938 to 1942.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1938/10/29/archives/president-assures-chinas-new-envoy-tells-dr-hu-shih-we-will-keep.html |title=PRESIDENT ASSURES CHINA'S NEW ENVOY; Tells Dr. Hu Shih We Will Keep Foreign Policy Based Upon Law and Order DIPLOMAT VOICES THANKS He Declares His People Will Fight On for Peace With Justice and Honor President Gives Assurance Will Fight On Indefinitely |date=29 October 1938 |work=The New York Times |access-date=16 May 2019 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1942/09/02/archives/ambassador-hu-shih-recalled-by-china-wei-tao-ming-formerly-at-vichy.html |title=Ambassador Hu Shih Recalled by China; Wei Tao Ming, Formerly at Vichy, Will Be His Successor |date=2 September 1942 |work=The New York Times |access-date=16 May 2019 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>{{sfnp|Cheng|Lestz|1999|p=373}} He was recalled in September 1942 and was replaced by [[Wei Tao-ming]]. Hu then served as chancellor of Peking University, at the time called National Peking University, between 1946 and 1948. In 1957, he became the third president of the [[Academia Sinica]] in Taipei, a post he retained until his death. He was also chief executive of the ''[[Free China Journal]]'', which was eventually shut down for criticizing [[Chiang Kai-shek]].

=== Death and legacy ===
[[File:Hu Shih Hall, Cornell University, north facade.jpg|thumb|right|Hu Shih Hall at [[Cornell University]]]]
He died of a heart attack in [[Nangang District, Taipei|Nankang, Taipei]] at the age of 70, and was entombed in Hu Shih Park, adjacent to the Academia Sinica campus. That December, Hu Shih Memorial Hall was established in his memory.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mh.sinica.edu.tw/koteki/about1_1.aspx |script-title=zh:成立經過 |trans-title=Establishment process |access-date=27 June 2019 |script-quote=zh:同年十二月十日，管理委員會舉行第一次會議，紀念館宣告正式成立，開始布置。 |publisher=Academia Sinica |language=zh}}</ref> It is an affiliate of the Institute of Modern History at the Academia Sinica, and includes a museum, his residence, and the park. Hu Shih Memorial Hall offers audio tour guides in Chinese and English for visitors.

Hu Shih's work fell into disrepute in mainland China until an 1986 article written by [[Ji Xianlin]], "A Few Words for Hu Shih" ({{lang|zh|为胡适说几句话}}), acknowledged Hu Shih's mistakes. This article was sufficiently convincing to many scholars that it led to a re-evaluation of the development of modern Chinese literature.<ref name="fic">"[http://www.china.org.cn/english/NM-e/139052.htm Ji Xianlin: A Gentle Academic Giant]", china.org, 19 August 2005</ref> Selection 15 of the [[Putonghua Proficiency Test]] is a story about Hu Shih debating the merits of [[written vernacular Chinese]] over [[Literary Chinese]].<ref>Putonghua Shuiping Ceshi Gangyao. 2004. Beijing. pp. 362–363. {{ISBN|7100039967}}</ref>

Hu also claimed that India conquered China culturally for 2000 years via religion. At the same time, Hu criticized Indian religions for holding China back scientifically.<ref>{{cite book |last=Deepak |first=B. R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_fsOEAAAQBAJ&dq=hu+shih+india+centuries&pg=PA6 |title=India and China: Beyond the Binary of Friendship and Enmity |year=2020 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-9811595004 |page=6 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Including [[redology]], he had a wide range of interests in literature, philosophy, history, textual criticism, and pedagogy. [[Feng Youlan]] criticized Hu for adopting a pragmatist framework and ignoring all the schools of Chinese philosophy before the [[Warring States period]]. Instead of simply laying out the history of Chinese philosophy, Feng claims that Hu made the reader feel as if "the whole Chinese civilization is entirely on the wrong track."<ref name="Yu1934" />{{sfn|Chou|2012|p=220}} Before Feng, Hu might have been the first to interpret the concept of the [[Tao]] through modern Western philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mou |first=Bo |title=The Routledge History of Chinese Philosophy |publisher=Routledge |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-134-24938-1 |page=220}}</ref>

As "one of [[Cornell University]]'s most notable Chinese alumni",<ref name="Friedlander" /> Hu has several honors there, including the Hu Shih Professorship and Hu Shih Distinguished lecture.<ref name="Friedlander" /> '''Hu Shih Hall''', a {{convert|103835|sqft|sqm|adj=on}} residence hall, was dedicated at Cornell in 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Hu Shih Hall |url=https://scl.cornell.edu/residential-life/housing/campus-housing/first-year-undergraduates/residence-halls/hu-shih-hall |access-date=24 October 2022 |website=Student & Campus Life, Cornell University}}</ref><ref name="Friedlander" />