Shu Hsin-ch'eng (5 July 1893-1960), editor and publisher. He was best known as the chief editor of the famous encyclopedic dictionary Tz'u-hai, published by the Chung-hua Book Company in 1936.

Born at Hsüp'u, Hunan, Shu Hsin-ch'eng came from a long line of impoverished tenant farmers. His father had been to school for a few years and had learned to read, write, and keep accounts. His mother, nee Hsu, was known for her shrewd and frugal management of the family's meager income. She went to work soon after Shu Hsin-ch'eng's birth so that he would be freed by education from otherwise obligatory agricultural labor. By 1898 Shu's parents had saved enough money for him to begin his studies at the local primary school, where he received elementary training in the Chinese classics. He was betrothed in 1898 to a girl three years older than he, and she came to live in the Shu household in 1899. Because she and Shu did not get along, the engagement was broken in 1903, and the girl returned to her family. Shu studied at the clan school in 1903 and spent his spare time working in his father's newly opened general store and studying commercial accounting. In 1904 the clan school was moved to the mountains of western Hunan, where Shu enjoyed greater freedom from parental control.

In 1905 Shu Hsin-ch'eng left the clan school to study with a scholar at Shuitung named Chang Huan-ch'uan. Chang did not ask his students to compose traditional eight-part essays; instead, he explained to them the meanings of the classics and their relevance to current events. He also introduced them to such topical publications as the Hsin-min ts'ung-pao {see Liang Ch'i-ch'ao) . Under Chang's guidance, Shu's education progressed rapidly, and the influence of this remarkable teacher probably was a cause of Shu's interest in education as a profession and a subject of study. In 1907 Shu was admitted by examination to the tuition-free Lu-liang Academy, which in 1908 became a prefectural higher primary school. Because his scholastic level was higher than that attained by most of his classmates, he spent most of his time reading political tracts and novels, training in Chinese boxing, and practicing calligraphy, seal carving, and painting. He remained at this school until April 1911, when he was dismissed for leading a student strike and demanding that the school provide real instead of dummy rifles for military training.

Shu Hsin-ch'eng submitted to an arranged marriage in the winter of 1911. The match was not a happy one, owing largely to Shu's mother's strict supervision of her new daughterin-law. In 1912 Shu sent his wife home to her family and went to Ch'angte, where he studied for several months at a teacher-training school. After spending the winter of 1912 in Changsha, he went to Wuchang in June 1913 and entered the Hunan Higher Normal School. To obtain his first term's tuition he sold his winter bedding and clothing as well as samples of his calligraphy. After being graduated from the Higher Normal School in 1917, he moved to Changsha, where he was reunited with his wife.

At Changsha, Shu taught for a while at the Tui-tse Middle School and spent much of his time in the library of the local YMGA. He also worked for the Hu-nan jih-pao [Hunan daily], which he had helped to found in 1916. In 1918 he became a Presbyterian and an instructor in education at the Fu-hsiang Girls School, a Presbyterian institution. He also served as director of social services at the Changsha YMCA and as instructor in music at the Provincial First Middle School, but he left both of these jobs in 1919 to devote all his energies to teaching at Fu-hsiang, where he had been appointed dean of studies. In November 1919, however, he was obliged to resign after coming into conflict with the American missionary staff over an indignant article he had contributed to Hsüeh-teng in which he had denounced the staff's action in dismissing a student from the school because she had received a letter from a male cousin. About this time, he also left the Presbyterian Church. Soon after his departure from the Fu-hsiang Girls School, Shu joined with some friends to found the Hu-nan chiao-yü yüeh-k'an [Hunan education monthly], which they were obliged to publish clandestinely because of the oppressive censorship rules then being enforced by the military governor of Hunan, Chang Ching-yao. Among the contributors to this magazine was Mao Tse-tung. Publication of the Hu-nan chiao-yü yüeh-k'an ceased after only five issues. Shu, possibly to avoid unpleasant political repercussions, left Changsha in June 1920 for Shanghai, where he joined the staff of the Shih-shih hsin-pao {China Times). After Chang Ching-yao was overthrown that summer by T'an Yen-k'ai (q.v.), Shu returned to Changsha, where he secured a teaching job at the First Provincial Normal School. In June 1921 Chang Tung-sun (q.v.), the editor of the China Times and the director of studies at the Chungkuo kung-hsueh (China Institute) in Woosung, invited Shu to take charge of the institute's middle school. Shu accepted the invitation and went to Woosung, where he soon became involved in a bitter dispute that resulted in a school strike. With its settlement after long negotiating sessions, Shu decided to put into practice some of the educational theories he most admired, notably the Dalton Plan. This program of progressive education, which had been introduced by Helen Parkhurst in the school system of Dalton, Massachusetts, in 1919, emphasized the necessity for classroom teaching according to the varying requirements of individual students and subdivided the work of the traditional curriculum into contract units for individual completion. Near the end of 1922, however, increased opposition to the Dalton Plan among his colleagues at Woosung forced Shu to resign. Despite this unhappy ending, Shu's 18-month sojourn at Woosung was important to his later career, for he came to know such prominent intellectuals as Chang Po-ling, Yeh Sheng-t'ao, and Chu Tzu-ch'ing (qq-tV.). Another important acquaintance made during this period was that of K'uei Lu-fei, the founder of the Chung-hua Book Company in Shanghai.

In 1923 Shu taught at the Middle School of Tung-nan University and at the Provincial Middle School in Nanking. In the summer of 1924 he made a lecture tour of 35 schools in Kiangsu, Anhwei, and Chekiang to urge adoption of the Dalton Plan. Later that year, he published a book on the plan entitled Taoerh-tun-chih yen-chiu-chi [studies on the Dalton plan]. These activities resulted in his appointment in October 1924 as professor of educational methods and psychology at the Chengtu Higher Normal School. Reactionary colleagues at the school seized on the fact that a girl student, Liu Fang, visited Shu often, and they cast aspersions on his character. Although the student body supported him, the pressures on him became such that he fled to Nanking in June 1925. Despite offers from the Honan Normal School and the Normal University of Peking, he decided to give up teaching and enter publishing.

As early as 1924 K'uei Lu-fei of the Chunghua Book Company had invited Shu to become editor in chief of the Chung-hua Book Company's middle school textbook division. Shu had refused this offer but had accepted an invitation to write a series of primers for adults, Kung-min tu-pen [the citizen's reader]. In 1925 Shu received and declined another offer from K'uei Lu-fei. He spent the next three years writing and publishing books based on his research and lectures on education. These included Chung-kuo chiao-yü chih-nan [a guide for Chinese education] and Chiao-yü ts'ung-kao [articles on education], both of 1925; Shou-hui chiao-yü-ch''üan yün-tung [the movement to regain educational sovereignty] and Chin-tai Chung-kuo liu-hsüeh-shih [history of study abroad in modern China], both of 1927; and Chiao-yü Vung-lun [the complete theory of education], Chung-kuo hsin-chiao-yü kai-k'uang [the situation of China's new education], Chung-kuo chiao-yü tz'u-tien [dictionary of Chinese education], Chin-tai Chung-kuo chiao-yü shih-liao [materials toward a history of education in China in modern times], and Chin-tai Chung-kuo chiao-yü ssu-hsiang-shih [a history of educational thought in modern China], all of 1928. Having completed these works, Shu accepted an offer from the Chunghua Book Company to become chief of the editorial board and editor in chief of the encyclopedic dictionary Tz'u-hai [sea of words] .

China's first encyclopedic dictionary, the Tz'u-yüan [fountain of words], edited by Liu Erh-k'uei of the Commercial Press, had been published in 1915. Its instant success inspired other publishing companies to undertake similar projects. The Chung-hua Book Company began work on an encyclopedic dictionary in 1915, but very little had been accomplished by the time Shu assumed charge of it. At first, Shu's other duties at Chung-hua impeded his participation in the project, but after 1930 he was able to devote his full attention to it. Working with a team of 50 associate editors, Shu planned a reference book which would be both larger and more selective than the Tz'uyüan. As published in two volumes in 1936, the Tz'u-hai contained 13,000 characters and well over 100,000 phrases; it covered modern drama, fiction, and slang as well as more traditional fields; and it included many Sino-Japanese coinages. In format also the Tz'u-hai contained many valuable innovations. A one-volume edition appeared in 1947. During his years as editor of the Tz'u-hai Shu Hsin-ch'eng also managed to continue his own writing. In 1930 he wrote the Hsien-tai chiao-yü fang-fa [modern methods of education] and edited the Chung-hua pai-k' o tz'u-tien [Chunghua encyclopedic dictionary], a brief compendium of technical terms used in various academic fields. In 1931 he wrote Chih ch'ingnien shu—t'ao-lun chi-chien kuan-yu tu-shu-ti shih [letters to young readers—concerning some matters related to study], and Chung-kuo chiao-yü chien-shefang-chen [a policy for the reconstruction of Chinese education]. In 1936 he published a book of memoirs, K'uang-ku-lu [looking back in anger], and a volume of travel sketches, Shu-yu hsin-ying [impressions of Szechwan] .

Shu remained in Shanghai throughout the Sino-Japanese war except for a brief trip to Hong Kong in 1939. In 1945 he published two more books: another volume of memoirs, Chiao-yü ho wo [education and me], and a second travel book, Man-yu jih-chi [diary of a leisurely ramble]. He also published his collected letters for the previous decade under the title Shih-nien shu. Shu remained in China after the Communists took power in 1949, and in 1954 he served as a delegate from Hunan to the National People's Congress. He served in a similar capacity in 1959, this time as a Shanghai delegate. Shu's last years were devoted to the compilation of source materials bearing on the history of Chinese education between the Opium War and the May Fourth Movement (published in 1961 as Chung-kuo chin-tai chiao-yü shih tzu-liao [materials toward a history of education in modern China]). Shu Hsin-ch'eng died in 1960. He was survived by Liu Fang, whom he had married in 1931, four years after the death of his first wife.