Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei 蔡元培 T. Ho-ch'ing 鶴卿 H. Chieh-min 孑民 Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei (January 1868-5 March 1940), the last of the Hanlin scholars to have major influence in twentieth-century China, was the leading liberal educator of early republican China and an important synthesizer of Chinese and Western intellectual patterns. After the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty, he served as minister of education (1912-13), chancellor of Peking University (1916-26), and founder and president of the Academia Sinica.

Shanyin, then the chief hsien of Shaohsing prefecture in Chekiang province, was the birthplace of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei. Both his grandfather and his father were merchants. His father, Ts'ai Kuang-p'u, was a successful manager of a native bank. Generous by nature, Ts'ai Kuang-p'u invariably came to the aid of needy relatives and friends. As a result, when he died in 1877, his widow and three sons (of whom Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, then eleven sui, was the second), found themselves in straitened circumstances. Some of Ts'ai Kuang-p'u's former beneficiaries suggested raising a fund to help to educate the Ts'ai children, but his widow, nee Chou, declined the offer. She brought up the children by dint of diligence and frugality. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei inherited both the instinctive generosity of his father and the independence of his mother, qualities which did much to shape his personal development in later years.

Ts'ai began his education in the Chinese classics at the age of 6 sui. Among his tutors was an uncle, Ts'ai Ming-en, a chü-jen who had an excellent private library which he let his nephew use. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei took the shengyuan degree in 1883, at the age of 17 sui. In 1889 he gained the chü-jen degree, and in 1890 he passed the metropolitan examinations for the chin-shih degree, thus becoming one of the youngest candidates to gain the top degree in the imperial examination system. Ts'ai was selected in 1892 as a scholar of the Hanlin Academy, and in 1894 he was promoted to the rank of compiler. During this period, he became friendly with a fellow Chekiang provincial, Chang Yuan-chi (q.v.).

Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei's success in the metropolitan examination and at the Hanlin Academy was in a sense a surprise. After he had gained the sheng-yuan degree in 1883, Ts'ai had lost interest in the stereotyped form of Chinese literary composition characterized as the eight-legged essay and had devoted his full attention to study of Chinese language and history, which did not contribute directly to success in the examination system of the time. He continued to study these subjects even after his admission to the Hanlin Academy and became one of the most erudite classical scholars of his day. China's ignominious defeat at the hands of Japan in the war of 1894-95 and the failure of the reform effort of 1898 had significant effects on Ts'ai's career. Because he believed that the backwardness of Chinese education was the principal cause of China's patent weakness, he resigned his positions and left Peking to return to Chekiang and devote himself to education. For a long time, he served at Shaohsing as principal of the Chung-hsi hsueh-t'ang [Sino- Western school], which boasted a modern curriculum. A student in the school at that time was Chiang Monlin (Chiang Meng-lin, q.v.), who was later to become an associate of Ts'ai at Peking University. In 1901 Ts'ai left his native district for Shanghai, where he taught at the Nan-yang kung-hsueh [Nanyang public school], a government-supported academy. Chang Yuan-chi was its principal. Among Ts'ai's students there were Huang Yen-p'ei and Shao Li-tzu (qq.v.), and a fellow teacher was Wu Chih-hui (q.v.). In 1902 Wu Chih-hui, who had gone to Japan with young Chinese government scholars from Kwangtung, came into conflict with the Chinese minister in Tokyo, who refused to recommend some of Wu's charges for admission to Japanese military schools. In the ensuing fracas, Wu was taken into custody by the Japanese authorities, who planned to deport him. Wu attempted suicide but was rescued by the Japanese police. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, then on a holiday trip to Japan, cut short his visit and volunteered to accompany Wu back to Shanghai to ensure that he would not make another suicide attempt.

On his return to Shanghai in August 1902, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei participated in the organization of the Chung-kuo chiao-yü hui (China Education Society) and became its first president. The association was an anti-Manchu revolutionary organization, and its leaders included Chang Ping-lin (q.v.), Huang Yen-p'ei, and Wu Chih-hui. It soon organized its own school at Shanghai, the Ai-kuo hsueh-she [patriotic study society], established chiefly for students who had been expelled from the Nan-yang kung-hsueh. Another institution established about that time was the Ai-kuo nü-hsueh [patriotic girls school], financed by Mrs. Silas Hardoon; the girls school also was related to the China Education Society in that Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei and his colleagues taught there and Ts'ai served as its principal for a time. Because the girls' school was not directly involved in revolutionary activities, however, it was not curbed by the authorities. Eventually it developed into one of the leading girls' schools of Shanghai. In 1903, when a dispute arose between the China Education Society and the Ai-kuo hsueh-she, Ts'ai, disgusted with the petty strife, left for a visit to Tsingtao. When the case of the Su-pao, a revolutionary newspaper (see Chang Ping-lin), broke in Shanghai, Ts'ai was among those whose name was included in the first list of men wanted by the authorities. The juxtaposition of circumstances led to rumors that Ts'ai had gone to Tsingtao to escape trouble. Actually, he returned to Shanghai almost immediately and took part in the founding of the Ching-chung jih-pao, a new journal that was regarded as a continuation of the efforts made by such papers as the Su-pao and the Kuo-min jih-pao to publish and disseminate anti-Manchu propaganda.

In the autumn of 1904, a new revolutionary organization, the Kuang-fu-hui [restoration society] was organized by young patriots from Kiangsu and Chekiang, particularly the latter province. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei helped in the founding of the new group and was elected its first president. Other leaders included Chang Pinglin, T'ao Ch'eng-chang, Ch'iu Chin, and Hsu Hsi-lin. The Kuang-fu-hui was the third-largest organized revolutionary group at that time, coming after the Hsing-Chung-hui of Sun Yat-sen and the Hua-hsing-hui of Huang Hsing (q.v.). Most of the members of these three groups became adherents of the T'ung-meng-hui when it was formed in Tokyo in August 1905. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei was appointed head of the Shanghai branch of the society and was charged with recruiting new members in that area. Ts'ai's role as practicing revolutionary was abandoned during the final years of the Ch'ing dynasty. In 1906 he returned to Peking with the hope of gaining a government scholarship for study abroad. When he discovered that scholars then were being sent to Japan, while he himself wanted to go to Europe, he accepted a post as teacher in the I-hsueh kuan [translation institute]. In 1907 Sun Pao-ch'i (q.v.) was appointed minister to Germany. Sun agreed to guarantee Ts'ai a monthly subsidy of 30 taels of silver; the Commercial Press in Shanghai, where Chang Yuan-chi directed the office of compilation and translation, also promised him a modest salary for translation work. Ts'ai thus went to Berlin, where he studied German for a year. From 1908 to 1911 he attended the University of Leipzig, where he attended lectures on philosophy, literature, ethnology, European history, experimental psychology, and aesthetics. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei returned to China in November 1911, shortly after the Wuchang revolt. When Sun Yat-sen assumed the provisional presidency of the republic in January 1912, he appointed Ts'ai minister of education. After Sun resigned in favor of Yuan Shih-k'ai, Ts'ai and Wang Ching-wei (q.v.) led a delegation to north China to discuss arrangements for Yuan's inauguration at Nanking. Yuan insisted, however, that the government be moved to Peking. In the first cabinet under Yuan headed by T'ang Shao-yi (q.v.) as premier, Ts'ai retained the post of minister of education. Growing friction between T'ang and Yuan Shih-k'ai led to the resignation of that cabinet in June 1912. Ts'ai then left for Germany and studied for a year at Leipzig. He returned to China in 1913, but he soon became disheartened over the failure of the so-called second revolution against Yuan Shih-k'ai and went to Europe again.

After a period in Germany, Ts'ai moved to France, where he associated himself with Li Shih-tseng (q.v.), Wang Ching-wei, Wu Chih-hui, and others in developing plans to enable young Chinese to study in France. In 1915, this group organized the Societe Franco-Chinois d'Education at Paris, with Ts'ai as its Chinese president, and they also sponsored a work-study program in which some 2,000 Chinese students participated. In the course of this French interlude during the First World War, Ts'ai, removed from the turmoil of Chinese politics, matured intellectually, and he found time to write a general outline of the principles of philosophy and a study on Kantian aesthetics. He also had sufficient leisure to renew friendships with Chang Jen-chieh (q.v.), Li Shih-tseng, and Wu Chih-hui. In later years the four men were widely known as the "four elder statesmen of the Kuomintang." Late in 1916, after the death of Yuan Shih-k'ai and the accession of Li Yuan-hung (q.v.) to the presidency, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei was appointed chancellor of Peking University. The appointment aroused controversy within the Kuomintang, as many of its leaders felt that acceptance of the post by Ts'ai would be tantamount to defection from the revolutionary ranks. Sun Yat-sen, however, favored the appointment on the ground that a scholar like Ts'ai who combined practical experience with intellectual excellence would in fact be an ideal man to disseminate the spirit of the republican revolution in north China.

The incumbency of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei as chancellor of Peking University (or Peita as it was conventionally shortened in Chinese) from 1916 to 1926 coincided with a critical period in recent Chinese history which was marked both by intellectual ferment and by the emergence in China of a new spirit of modern nationalism and social reform. Peking University played a major role in this process of experimentation and change. The leadership of Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, and his devotion to independent thinking, innovative experimentation, and encouragement of young talent, helped to develop Peking University into China's premier institution of higher education. Ts'ai nurtured by both advocacy and example an atmosphere at Peking University which encouraged first-class scholarship and permitted espousal of heterodox opinions in the faculty and political activism on the part of the students. The university served as a center of the May Fourth Movement, and it was also the institution where Li Ta-chao (q.v.), the young Mao Tse-tung, and others became interested in the tenets of Marxism- Leninism. While personally moderate in temperament, Ts'ai was implacable when moral or ethical principles were involved in an issue. When student leaders were arrested in Peking after the May Fourth Movement in 1919, for example, he left Peking for Hangchow as a gesture of protest against official persecution. Public opinion forced the Peking authorities to release the students, and Ts'ai returned to his post in September.

During his tenure as head of China's ranking university, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei made several trips abroad. In November 1920, commissioned by the Chinese ministry of education to survey educational conditions in Europe and the United States, Ts'ai traveled with Lo Wen-kan (q.v.), who was on a special mission to investigate judicial systems. In France Ts'ai received an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris; and he and Lo Wen-kan then visited several other Western European countries. In July 1921 they visited the United States, where Ts'ai received an honorary degree from New York University and raised funds for the construction of Peking University library. On the way back to China, he attended the Pacific Educational Conference in Honolulu.

In November 1922, when internecine political struggles at Peking led to the arrest of Lo Wen-kan, who was then minister of finance, on charges of corruption, Ts'ai again left his post in protest. After an interlude of retirement at Soochow in 1923, he went to Europe, where he lived for a time in Brussels. In 1924 he spent time in Belgium and France, where he assisted Li Shih-tseng and Wu Chih-hui with Sino-French cultural and educational exchange problems, and in 1925 he went to Germany, where he studied ethnology at the University of Hamburg. Because of this absence in Europe, he did not participate in the reorganization of the Kuomintang at its First National Congress, held at Canton in January 1924. He was, however, elected to alternate membership in the Central Supervisory Committee.

In February 1926 Ts'ai received a cable from the ministry of education urging him to return to Peking University, where Chiang Monlin (Chiang Meng-lin, q.v.) had served as acting chancellor of the institution during his absence. Ts'ai returned to China only to discover that the Northern Expedition had been launched from Canton. He then joined the Kiangsu- Chekiang-Anhwei Joint Association, an organization designed to mobilize support for the National Revolutionary Army. That winter, when he went to Ningpo to attend a meeting of the association, he found the situation in Chekiang to be dangerous. Accordingly, he fled to Foochow, where he remained for several months. During the period of conflict between the Nationalist governments at Nanking and Wuhan in 1927, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei sided with his fellow-provincial Chiang Kai-shek. He attended meetings of the Central Political Council and became a member of the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang. At the same time he was appointed acting minister ofjustice at Nanking, and he later became a member of the State Council. In the autumn of 1928, when the National Government at Nanking inaugurated a five-yuan system of government in accordance with the formula stipulated by Sun Yat-sen, Ts'ai was appointed president of the Control Yuan, but he soon resigned. Although he did not return to Peking University after 1926, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei's basic role in national affairs continued to be directly related to higher education. In 1927 he was named president of the Ta-hsueh-yuan [board of universities], which replaced the former ministry of education. The new system, patterned after the French model, had been recommended by Chang Jen-chieh, Li Shih-tseng, and Wu Chih-hui, who had been influenced by their residence in France. The system called for creation of so-called university districts in various parts of China, and as a start three such districts were inaugurated in Peking and in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces. After an initial year of experimentation, the system was found to be unsuitable for China; it was abolished in 1929, and the ministry of education was restored.

Early in 1928 Ts'ai helped to found the Chung-yang yen-chiu-yuan, or Academia Sinica, designed to be the highest institution of advanced study and research in China. The Academia Sinica, with Ts'ai as its first president, did much to raise the level of research in China, and certain of its institutes gained international recognition. Serving under Ts'ai as secretary general of the Academia Sinica was Yang Ch'uan (q.v.), an able academic administrator trained in the United States. Yang was politically active in China, and in late 1932 he was a prominent figure in the organization of the China League for Civil Rights, which was supported by Sun Yat-sen's widow, Soong Ch'ing-ling (q.v.), and other public figures. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei was active in efforts to safeguard civil rights in China, and in 1932 he participated in an unsuccessful appeal to gain the release of Ch'en Tu-hsiu (q.v.), who had served under him at Peking University as dean of the college of letters.
In June 1933, Yang Ch'uan was assassinated at Shanghai. The impact of that event on Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei was such that after extended consideration he resigned all official posts in 1935 and issued a public statement expressing disgust with the restrictive political and intellectual controls exercised by the Nanking authorities. After retirement from public life, Ts'ai fell ill in 1936 at Shanghai. When the Sino-Japanese war erupted in mid- 1937, he did not accompany the National Government on its westward exodus, a decision caused partly by poor health, partly by dissatisfaction with Nanking politics. Instead he went to Hong Kong in late 1937 and was joined there by his family in February 1938. Ts'ai lived the final months of his life in virtual anonymity. He made only one public appearance — to attend an exhibition of Chinese art sponsored by the vice chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, when he was persuaded to make a speech. His health continued to decline, and his physical condition was aggravated by an accident at home on 3 March 1940. He was rushed to the hospital, but he died two days later. Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei married three times. His first wife, nee Wang, died in 1898. In 1901 he married Huang Chung-yu, a highly educated young woman from a scholarly family in Kiangsu. She died in Peking in 1921 while Ts'ai was on a mission to Europe. On 1 July 1923 while in retirement in Chekiang, he married Chou Chun, who survived him. She had been a student of Ts'ai at the Ai-kuo nü-hsueh in Shanghai and had become a prominent educator. Ts'ai had four sons. The eldest, Ts'ai Wu-chi, studied agriculture and veterinary medicine and at one time headed the bureau of commodity inspection and testing in Shanghai. The other three sons were Pai-ling, Huai-hsin, and Ying-to. Ts'ai had two daughters, Weilien (d. 1939), who studied art in France, and Tsu-ang.

Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei's reputation rests on his performance and integrity as the leading liberal educator of pre- 1928 China. Although a product of the classical system and an eminent scholar of traditional Chinese culture, he was also imbued with the spirit of independent inquiry characteristic of modern Western scholarship. He was especially interested in problems of philosophy, was an enthusiastic exponent of aestheticism, and produced a succinct but comprehensive history of Chinese ethics, Chungkuo lun-li-hsueh shih, in 1931. That year he contributed a chapter on painting and calligraphy to the Symposium on Chinese Culture edited by Sophia H. Chen Zen (Ch'en Hengche, q.v.). Ts'ai was a product of the Confucian system, but he was critical of the formality of Confucianism and encouraged critical study of its basic texts at Peking University. As chancellor of Peking University and founder of the Academia Sinica, Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei had a deep influence on higher education in republican China.