Abstract
Infused with the spirit of May Fourth critique of the enfeebled Chinese body politic of the past, a young Mao Zedong joined the chorus of intellectuals calling for renewed personal and national strength. In his 1917 essay “A Study of Physical Education,” Mao stated, “There is a saying: ‘Civilize the mind and make savage the body.’ This is an apt saying. In order to civilize the mind, one must first make savage the body. If the body is made savage, then the civilized mind will follow.”1 He elaborated on these views on the interconnectedness of mind and body as he argued against the notion that persons with strong minds had weak bodies and those with robust bodies had deficient mental capacities. According to Mao, what was needed for perfection of body and mind was physical transformation that could elicit reconstitution of the mind. This dialectical relationship between body and mind advocated by Mao, albeit in preMarxian language, foreshadowed practices of body and education central
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