The untimely Don Quixotes: “The old school within the new school” during the May Fourth period

Abstract

From the late Qing to the May Fourth period, there were two lines of intellectuals when it came to thought, concepts, and spiritual nature. One was the literati of the romantic school from Kang Youwei 康有爲 and Liang Qichao 梁啓超 of the Hundred Days’ Reform to the New Youth of the May Fourth, while the other was the Neo-Confucian intellectuals from Zeng Guofan 曾國藩 and Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 to the Xueheng group 學衡派. The Xueheng group were figures within the New School who held classical sentiments and could be called the “old school within the new school.” During the May Fourth period, while Enlightenment School intellectuals were active in the arena of public opinion, the Xueheng group intellectuals held fast to the “new temple” of the academy. Within the Xueheng group, however, unlike academy intellectuals such as Chen Yinke 陳寅恪 and Liu Yizheng 柳詒徵, Wu Mi 吳宓, and Mei Guangdi 梅光迪 wanted to be public intellectuals influential in society who could compete with Hu Shi 胡適 and Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 for the right of discourse in public space. In the end, they could not escape the fate of marginalization due to their misjudgment of both the time and space. Furthermore, the departure and misplacement of the actions and concepts of Wu Mi and Mei Guangdi also harmed the image of the character of the new classicists.