Hu Shih (Simplified:
胡适, Traditional:
胡適, Pinyin:
Hushi), (December
17, 1891-February
24, 1962)
was a Chinese
philosopher and essayist.
His courtesy
name was Shizī
(適之).
Born Hu Xīng
(洪騂) in Shanghai
to Hu Chuan (胡傳, courtesy name Tiehua 鐵花) and Feng Shundi (馮順弟),
Hu had an ancestry in Jixi (績溪), Anhui.
In January 1904, he was arranged to marry Jiang Dongxiu (江冬秀), an
illiterate girl one year older than him with bound
feet. The marriage took place in December 1917. He received his
fundamental education in Jixi and Shanghai.
Being one of the national scholars, on August 16,
1910, Hu was sent to study at Cornell
University in the United
States and later Columbia
University. He was greatly influenced by his professor, John
Dewey, and became a lifelong advocate of pragmatic evolutionary
change. He received his Ph.D in philosophy in 1917
and returned to lecture in Peking
University. During his tenure there, he began to write for New
Youth journal, 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. He quit New
Youth in the 1920s
and published several political newspapers and journals with his
friends. His most important contribution was promotion of vernacular
literature (Baihua)
to replace classic literature (see Classical
Chinese).
He was ambassador
from the Republic
of China to the United States of America (1938-1942),
chancellor of Peking University (1946-1948),
and later 1958
president of the Academia
Sinica in Taiwan,
where he remained until his death by heart
attack in Nangang
at the age of 71. He was chief executive of the Free
China Journal, which was eventually shut down for criticizing Chiang
Kai-shek.