Editing John Dewey (section)

=== Visits to China and Japan ===
[[File:Hu Shih and John Dewey.jpg|thumb|upright|John Dewey and Hu Shih, {{Circa|1938}}–1942]]
In 1919, Dewey and his wife traveled to Japan on [[Sabbatical|sabbatical leave]]. Though Dewey and his wife were well received by the people of Japan during this trip, Dewey was also critical of the nation's governing system and claimed that the nation's path towards democracy was "ambitious but weak in many respects in which her competitors are strong".<ref name="japangrant">{{Cite web |title=The Trans-Pacific Experience of John Dewey |url=http://www.jaas.gr.jp/jjas/PDF/2007/No.18-107.pdf  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123213951/http://www.jaas.gr.jp/jjas/PDF/2007/No.18-107.pdf |archive-date=November 23, 2021 |access-date=December 9, 2018}}</ref> He also warned that "the real test has not yet come. But if the nominally democratic world should go back on the professions so profusely uttered during war days, the shock will be enormous, and bureaucracy and militarism might come back."<ref name="japangrant" />

During his trip to Japan, Dewey was invited by [[Peking University]] to visit China, probably at the behest of his former students, [[Hu Shih]] and [[Chiang Monlin]]. Dewey and his wife Alice arrived in Shanghai on April 30, 1919,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31043/31043-h/31043-h.htm |title=Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey and John Dewey |access-date=May 3, 2016 |archive-date=March 9, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309022732/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31043/31043-h/31043-h.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> just days before student demonstrators took to the streets of Peking to protest the decision of the Allies in Paris to cede the German-held territories in [[Shandong]] province to Japan. Their [[May Fourth Movement|demonstrations on May Fourth]] excited and energized Dewey, and he ended up staying in China for two years, leaving in July 1921.<ref>Jessica Ching-Sze Wang. ''John Dewey in China: To Teach and to Learn''. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. {{ISBN|9780791472033}} pp. 3–5.</ref>

[[File:张謇与杜威等人的合影.jpg|thumb|John Dewey in China in 1920]]
In these two years, Dewey gave nearly 200 lectures to Chinese audiences and wrote nearly monthly articles for Americans in ''[[The New Republic]]'' and other magazines. Well aware of both Japanese expansionism into China and the attraction of [[Bolshevism]] to some Chinese, Dewey advocated that Americans support China's transformation and that Chinese base this transformation in education and social reforms, not revolution. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people attended the lectures, which were interpreted by Hu Shih. For these audiences, Dewey represented "Mr. Democracy" and "Mr. Science," the two personifications which they thought of representing modern values and hailed him as "the American Confucius".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shekitka |first=John Patrick |date=2022-12-20 |title=What Knowledge is of Most Worth? Considering the Neo-Confucians in the Contemporary Debate Between Moral and Intellectual Learning |journal=ECNU Review of Education |volume=7 |language=en |page=209653112211454 |doi=10.1177/20965311221145446 |s2cid=255038008 |issn=2096-5311|doi-access=free }}</ref> His lectures were lost at the time but have been rediscovered and were published in 2015.<ref>Roberto Frega, "John Dewey's Social and Political Philosophy in the China Lectures: Introduction." ''Transaction of the Charles S. Peirce Society'' 53.1 (2017): 3–6 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.53.1.01 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308193258/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.53.1.01 |date=March 8, 2021 }}.</ref> Dewey's lecture on "Three Contemporary Philosophers: Bertrand Russell, Henri Bergson and William James" at Peking University in 1919 was attended by a young [[Mao Zedong]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Niu |first1=Xiaodong |title=Mao Zedong and John Dewey: A Comparison of Educational Thought |journal=The Journal of Educational Thought |date=August 1995 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=129–147 |doi=10.55016/ojs/jet.v29i2.52386 |jstor=23767673 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23767673 |access-date=13 October 2024}}</ref>

Zhixin Su states:
:Dewey was, for those Chinese educators who had studied under him, the great apostle of philosophic liberalism and experimental methodology, the advocate of complete freedom of thought, and the man who, above all other teachers, equated education to the practical problems of civic cooperation and useful living.<ref>Zhixin Su, "A critical evaluation of John Dewey's influence on Chinese education." ''American Journal of Education'' 103.3 (1995): 302–325 [305] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1085533 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210420101912/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1085533 |date=April 20, 2021 }}.</ref>

Dewey urged the Chinese to not import any Western educational model. He recommended to educators such as [[Tao Xingzhi]], that they use pragmatism to devise their own model school system at the national level. However, the national government was weak, and the provinces largely controlled by warlords, so his suggestions were praised at the national level but not implemented. However, there were a few implementations locally.<ref>Jeffer B. Daykin, "The Glocalization of John Dewey's Educational Philosophy in Republican-Era China." ''American Journal of Chinese Studies'' (2014): 31–43. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44288434 Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310001355/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44288434 |date=March 10, 2021 }}</ref> Dewey's ideas did have influence in Hong Kong, and in Taiwan after the nationalist government fled there. In most of China, Confucian scholars controlled the local educational system before 1949 and they simply ignored Dewey and Western ideas. In Marxist and Maoist China, Dewey's ideas were systematically denounced.<ref>Su, "A critical evaluation of John Dewey's influence on Chinese education". pp. 308–309.</ref>