Development and Breakup of The Movement
The May Fourth Demonstrations of 1919 initially united these leaders but soon there was a debate and falling out over the role of politics. Hu Shi, Cai Yuanpei, and other liberals urged the demonstrating students to return to the classroom, but Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, frustrated with the inadequacy of cultural change, used their roles as Peking University faculty to organize Marxist study groups and the first meeting of the Chinese Communist Party. Li called for "fundamental solutions," but Hu criticized this as abstract, calling for "more study of questions, less study of isms." Many of their younger followers followed Li and Chen into organized politics, including Mao Zedong.
Others of the May Fourth students heeded Hu Shi's call to return to their studies, taking them in new directions which shaped scholarship for the next generation. The historian Gu Jiegang, for instance, pioneered the application of the New History he studied at Columbia University to classical Chinese texts in the Doubting Antiquity Movement. Gu also inspired his students in the study of Chinese folk traditions which had been ignored or dismissed by Confucian scholars. Education was high on the New Culture agenda. Cai Yuanpei headed a New Education Society, and many university students joined the Mass Education Movement of James Yen and Tao Xingzhi which organized literacy classes.
In 1924, Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore held numerous lectures in China. Tagore argued the detrimental consequences China could encounter by integrating too much western civilization into Chinese society. In spite of Tagore's efforts, two western ideals were quickly garnering support throughout China. These two theories were democracy and science, both major components of the New Culture Movement. Democracy became a vital tool for those frustrated with the unstable condition of China, whereas science became a crucial instrument to discard the "darkness of ignorance and superstition."
In short, the New Culture Movement advocated and debated a wide range of topics that included science, technology, individualism, music and democracy.
Read more about this topic: New Culture Movement
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“It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.—In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
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—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
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“Reporters for tabloid newspapers beat a path to the park entrance each summer when the national convention of nudists is held, but the cult’s requirement that visitors disrobe is an obstacle to complete coverage of nudist news. Local residents interested in the nudist movement but as yet unwilling to affiliate make observations from rowboats in Great Egg Harbor River.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)