Nanking Higher Normal School-Southeast University and the New Culture Movement

Further discussion on the connections of Nanking Higher Normal School-Southeast University to the New Culture Movement depends, to a considerable extent, on the separation from the perspective centering on “Xueheng (“学衡”) School”. The early spread of words and concepts related to the “new culture” in the southeast was highly relevant to the participation of Liu Boming as well as his colleagues in Dewey’s lecturing activities. Later, Liu participated in the development of critical attitudes towards the “new culture” in the school/university based on the influence of personnel changes and his own reasons, as his academic thought still had a lot in common with advocators of new tendencies from Peking University. Liu’s interpretation of key points of the New Culture Movement was also different from that of Mei Guangdi, Wu Mi and other key participants of Xueheng (the critical review), and was closer to the understanding of his colleagues who were employed earlier as well as that of Jiangsu Educational Association. Taking Liu as a clue and involving his ways of operating school affairs, teaching, speaking, writing and other activities, researchers might illustrate the ideological and practical aspects of southeast scholars whose historical images were often distorted or obscured by the dichotomy emphasizing the new-old opposition between the north and the south.