Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu were both pivotal figures in the May Fourth Movement. He was the first scholar to advocate vernacular writing and new poetry, and devoted himself to overthrowing more than 2,000 years of classical Chinese.

Mr. Gu Jiegang said that he learned this set of "learning methods" by reading Hu Shi's article "Examination of the Water Margin".

In the thirties, Hu Shih had a unique vision, promoting, appointing, and helping Liang Shiqiu complete the "Translation of the Complete Works of Shakespeare", which was later known as one of Liang Shiqiu's "three major achievements" to the literary world.

Chairman Mao's first Communist Party of China Party School, "Hunan Self-Study University", was established because of Hu Shi's proposal and advocacy. In his letter to Hu Shih, he mentioned: "Your student Mao Zedong."

Scholar Xuan Daohua believes that Chairman Mao was also influenced by Hu Shih and Dewey's pragmatism during the May Fourth period, and that Chairman Mao's ideological viewpoint of integrating theory with practice has a lot in common with it.

Although Ji Xianlin was not a student of Hu Shi (his teacher was Chen Yinke), he was proficient in Sanskrit, Pali, and Tocharian and was promoted by Hu Shi in the early days of his return.

During Lin Yutang's study, the Qing government canceled the financial aid for international students, and Lin Yutang continued to study abroad with Hu Shi's funding. When he returned home and came down from the airport, he only had 1 cent in his pocket.

Lu Xun and Chen Xiying both accused Hu Shih's advocacy of "sorting out the country's history" as a way to reverse the wheel of modern science. Even Hu Shih's expert Zhou Zhiping also believes: "Hu Shih's advocacy of 'sorting out the country's history' can be said to have not played any positive role in promoting the development of China's natural sciences. He even led a group of young people to the old road of Qianjia's examination. (See Zhou Zhiping-Hu Shicong)

In order to promote democracy and freedom, Lei Zhen founded the Free China magazine and asked Hu Shi to be the publisher. Free China Magazine used to be the only center of democratic thought under the authoritarian rule of Chiang Chung-cheng to exercise dictatorship and suppress freedom of speech, but later it was also suspended for criticizing Chiang Chung-cheng and the Kuomintang and planning to form an opposition party to invite Hu Shih to lead, and Lei Zhen was also falsely imprisoned, but Free China's promotion of democratic thought and freedom of speech advocated by Hu Shih affected the later non-party movement in Taiwan and the establishment of the Democratic Progressive Party, and was the sower of Taiwan's democratic movement.

Li Ao heard of Hu Shi's name when he was in elementary school in Beiping. After arriving in Taiwan, I borrowed a copy of "Selected Writings of Hu Shih", and after reading it, I was impressed by the new ideas and the clear language. caused him "a lot of fanaticism". He was "in confusion, and abandoned the old ways."

In 1952, Li Ao handed a long letter of 2,000 words to Hu Shi at Taichung Station, expressing his "personal worship" of Hu.

1953 year. After Li Ao entered his third year of high school. Take a leave of absence from school and stay at home. Educate yourself with all your might. At the end of the year, the four collections of Hu Shiwencun were reprinted by the Far East Book Company. Many articles were deleted from the co-printed edition, and Li Ao compared them with the original version. Deeply dissatisfied, he wrote "About 'Hu Shih's Wencun'" and criticized it, which was originally published in the "University Magazine" edited by his classmate Lu Xiaozhao, and later deleted a part of it and reprinted it in "Free China" by Lei Zhenban, which was published in the journal's 16 volumes and 5 issues on March 1, 1957, and was retitled "Starting from Reading Hu Shih's Wencun".

"Chen Zhifan and Hu Shi are friends who have forgotten their years, and they went to the United States to study and were sponsored by Hu Shi. The letter to Hu Shi is included in "Letter to Hu Shi in College Days".

Hu Shi not only set off the New Culture Movement, but also a researcher of Chinese classical culture. He also received the baptism of Western civilization. In 1962, Chiang Kai-shek's handwritten couplet highly summarized this, Yun: a model of old morality in the new culture, and a teacher of new ideas in the old ethics.

Hu Shih was the target of official criticism in Chinese mainland during the "ultra-left" period of the '50s and '70s, especially by "ultra-left" Stalinist scholars, whose political ideas were once denied by Chinese mainland textbooks.

In the early 50s, a large-scale critical campaign was launched against Hu Shih. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, research in recent decades has tended to affirm his rightful historical position; in addition, Hu Shih's article "My Mother" has also been selected as a textbook for full-time Chinese education junior high schools in mainland China, and articles commemorating the spirit of Mr. Hu Shi have been frequently found in newspapers and magazines on the mainland.

In Tang Degang's "Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography", he is called an "incorrigible optimist". Hu Shih defines himself as follows: "Sometimes I call myself a historian, sometimes I call myself an intellectual historian. But I never claimed to be a philosopher, or any other expert. 」

Lu Xun once published articles such as "Good Government", which actually criticized Hu Shi's ally Liang Shiqiu, but also implicitly criticized Hu Shi's "weak" revolutionary stance.

Hu Shih's thoughts in his later years are not much different from those of his middle and teenage years, so as Mr. Tang Degang said, it is difficult for those who have read Hu Shi's "Forty Self-Statements" to see anything new in this oral account ("Hu Shi's Oral Autobiography").

However, Mr. Tang Degang mentioned in "Hu Shih's Miscellaneous Memories": "Therefore, if we want to understand Hu Shih's thoughts in his later years, we can only ask for them when Hu's heart is in his mouth, and when he talks and laughs with personal friends. Mr. Hu is not as straightforward as Liang Rengong. Articles that challenge one's own thinking are not found in Hu's writings. 」

Yu Yingshi's Hu Shi in the History of Modern Chinese Thought says: "For such an enlightened figure, we can neither measure him by the standard of traditional Chinese 'scholars', nor by the level of modern Western professional philosophers. "Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy and the Revolution in Historiography" also says: "It is true that he did not go deep into Western studies, but it is precisely because of this that he did not perish in the sea of Western studies. 」

In "Hu Shih's Life from the Diary", he also said: "It is undeniable that he has basic training in both Western philosophy and the history of philosophy. This training eventually made him a pioneer in the field of the history of Chinese philosophy, and we should not underestimate his philosophical knowledge too much, and the philosophical training he received in the last three or four years of his life in the United States reached the general level of the time, which was sufficient for him to study the history of Chinese philosophy. 」

Mr. Tang Degang gave him a very high evaluation in the book "Hu Shizhi's Miscellaneous Memories": "The great thing about Mr. Hu Shizhi is that he was originally the founder of China's New Culture Movement, but after 50 years of testing, he has neither been radical nor outdated.

He has always maintained his position as an unbiased mainstay. Seeking truth from facts, setting an example, and guiding our ancient civilization to the road of modernization. Familiar with the history of Chinese culture in the past 100 years, I still think that Mr. Hu is the first person in contemporary times!"

Wen Yuanning commented in "Not Enough Confidant": Because Dr. Hu has been teaching philosophy at National Peking University for many years, people call him a philosopher. Of course, he was a philosopher. But the term "philosopher" is certainly not enough to describe all his activities.

He was also known as a "pamphlet writer" because he often wrote articles for publications and commented on issues of general concern. Yes, he was a "pamphlet writer," but to think that he also had the opportunism and mental state of mind of a "pamphlet writer" would be a great stigma against him.

Because Dr. Hu never renounced worldly wealth, some people say that he is a layman, yes, he is a layman, but the impression that can only be produced is a group of friends who drink and meat at the banquet.

If there is a name in the world that can be used to refer to a person like Dr. Hu, I think the 18th-century philosophe [note the difference between philosophe and philosopher, originally referring to the Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers of the 18th century, represented by Diderot, Rousseau, and Voltaire, and understanding them will understand the meaning of the word. "Philosopher" is just right.

Voltaire, D'Alembert, Holbach, Elvis, Diderot and Jeremy Bentham were all "philosophers". In them, there are all elements of laymen, scholars, doers, and philosophers.

They all have a precise view of the structure of the universe, they write with a doer's optimism and confidence, and they all talk about all kinds of problems under the sun with bright and authoritative writing.

Whether they are right or wrong, they all have the courage to speak up and stand up for what they claim. In the midst of such a group of "philosophers", Dr. Hu is not the least outstanding one. And in China, I dare not say that he is not the only contemporary philosopher.

Ji Xianlin once commented on Hu Shi, "He is a scholar, to put it mildly, he is a booklion." And to cite a small matter, Hu Shi announced before a meeting that he would retire early, and suddenly someone talked about "Water Jing Note" at the meeting, Mr. Hu Shizhi immediately became energetic, his eyebrows danced, his mouth was like a river, and he even forgot to leave early.

Hu Shih: "In a normal country, the responsibility for politics lies with adults, and young people's interests are in sports, entertainment, and making friends of the opposite sex, but in a perverted country, politics is too corrupt and there is no organ to represent public opinion, so the responsibility for interfering in politics must fall on young students. 」

According to the official database of the Nobel Prize, Hu Shih was nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1939. (To be continued......)