| Abstract |
Qian Xuantong and Zhang Binglin met in Japan at the end of the Qing dynasty. Qian was a admirer of Zhang at the time. He read over his books and defended Zhang against people with different views. Qian also contributed significantly to Zhang teaching establishment and they had frequently scholarly discussions and exchanges. They share the same value of life, which insisting on the difference between true and false. Qian Xuantong was exposed to thoughts of Chinese culture quintessence school in the later Qing dynasty at his young age, and agreed with Zhang’s claim to incent the nation by Chinese culture quintessence. In his view, language and law must maintain the uniqueness of the Chinese culture. However, after the founding of the Republic of China, Qian changed his mind completely after Yuan shikai’s restoration. This event led him to believe that Chinese, as a written language, hindered the development of China and therefore should be abolished. However, he was still influenced by Zhang strongly because of the factor that it was Zhang’s theory that language is a vital element of culture. Although Zhang was his teacher, Qian didn’t accept much form Zhang. When he learned the New Text Confucianism in Late Qing Dynasty, he turned to the idea of reforms based upon ancient political system, and became a supporter of Kang Youwei and Cui Shi. His new thoughts later became an important source of his criticism of traditional thinking during the anti-tradition movement. It could therefore be argued that though Qian adopted Zhang’s spirit of criticism but Zhang’s theory of “contribution” was beyond his comprehension. |
