Editing Hu Shih (section)

=== 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>