"Through John Dewey America is offering her best to China and she is saying to the Chinese through him : you cannot avoid social reform and you want social reform. Will you have it by the method of education, of self-discipline, of experiment and of method? Or will you have it by submitting yourself to the terrors of the doctrinaire or to the spurred boot heel of the autocrat? The question is still yours to answer."

C . F . Remer, Millard's Review July 3, 1920


INTRODUCTION

John Dewey's series of lectures in China during 1919-1921 could not have taken place in a more significant period of modern Chinese history. The pressure of Japanese aggression and the blatant failures of the warlord government had, just prior to and during Dewey's visit, stimulated an "awakening" of many Chinese students and intellectuals . Most notably, the Versailles settlement (in which the Western powers recognized Japanese intrusion into Shantung Province) provoked an angry response from thousands of young Chinese who, on May 4, 1919, took to the streets of Peking, attacked a "pro-Japanese" minister of the warlord government and, by mustering popular support, helped assure that Chinese officials would not sign the Versailles treaty.

The Chinese students, whose "most important purpose" was to "maintain the existence and independence of the nation," had not limitedthemselves to street demonstrations . From the very beginning of what was later to be called "the May Fourth Movement" they sought a doctrine which would provide a means to national wealth and power . Not surprisingly, therefore, Western "isms" of all varieties were discussed and leading Western thinkers invited to China to expound them.

John Dewey, who was asked to lecture in China by several Chinese educational organizations, was one of the more forceful exponents of Western learning ever to visit that country. His social and political philosophy, as asserted to the Chinese, indicated that the warlord government in Peking could not be changed by "political" means and that lasting change could come about only by gradual reform of Chinese institutions . More specifically, Dewey insisted that the experimental method of science should be applied to social and political problems. That method, which required that theories be regarded only as hypotheses and insisted upon studied caution seemed, to Dewey, to offer the only viable solution to the crisis which confronted the Chinese.

Dewey's views were well presented in China, mainly as a result of the efforts of his Chinese disciple, Hu Shih . Hu had studied under Dewey at Columbia University and, during his stay in America, had developed an almost complete attachment to the values of the modern West. In the two years prior to Dewey's visit, Hu Shih (who had returned to China in 1917) became a leading advocate of Dewey's philosophy and helped arrange for the visit of his former teacher. Even after Dewey returned to America, Hu tirelessly continued to expound his teacher's viewpoint.

The philosophy advocated by Dewey and Hu was initially popular in China. In the immediate context of events in 1919 -- in which students could force the government to reject the Versailles treaty, but failed in other efforts to reform the political structure itself -- there were few other alternatives . Significantly, even Chen Tu-hsiu and Li Ta-chao, editors (with Hu Shih) of the influential New Youth magazine, and eventual co-founders of the Chinese Communist party, endorsed Dewey's program for their country. However, Dewey's influence began to wane even before the American philosopher left China in 1921 and, as a result, Hu Shih was increasingly isolated as he continued to expound Experimentalism. In particular, Hu could do little as his colleagues on New Youth, as well as increasingly large numbers of Chinese students, became infatuated with quick "fundamental solutions" -- solutions which were appealing because theyassured that China's "equivalence" with the West could be achieved "en bloc," in a relatively short time.

The triumphant "fundamental solution" in China was, of course, Marxism -- and the initial success of that doctrine was secured, at its earliest stages in the founding of the Chinese Communist party by Ch en Tu-hsiu and Li Ta-chao in 1920. For them, and for many other Chinese as well, the inherent gradualism in Dewey's logical theory was not compatible with their intensely nationalistic aspirations. They could not, and did not, adhere for long to a program of "step by step" reform to modernize their nation.

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