Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t5: Tao Xingzhi
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t5
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Tao Xingzhi
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Tao Xingzhi (October 18, 1891 - July 25, 1946) was a Chinese educator. Originally, his name was Tao Wenrui and later he changed it as Tao Zhixing and eventually to Tao Xingzhi. He was a native of Shexian, Anhui. He visited India during the Anti-Japanese War and there he met Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi.
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Lifetime Tao Xingzhi was a descendant of Tao Yuanming, the great poet of the Jin Dynasty. His father was a Christian, and his mother once was a maidservant at Chongyi School under the church. So, poor as his family was that he could study at this church school free of charge. During this time, he cultivated a spirit of sacrifice and service as advocated by Christianity and an aspiration to liberty, equality and fraternity and also acquired a solid knowledge of English. He became a Christian in 1913, and graduated from University of Nanking in 1914, with a proficiency in English. Since University of Nanking was the only ‘Class A’ university founded in China by American Christian Church, its graduates were entitled to direct admission into a graduate school in the United States of America. So, Tao Xingzhi went to the United States to study municipal administration. In 1915, he received a Master’s degree in Politics from University of Illinois, and in the autumn of the same year, he went to University of Columbia to study educational administration, and obtained a certificate of Urban Education Director from Normal School in 1917. He returned to China in August 1917, and served as an Education Professor at Nanking Teachers’ College and the Dean of Department of Education of Southeast University. In 1922, he worked with Huang Yanpei and others to establish China Mass Education Promotion Society. In 1927, he founded Xiaozhuang Normal College in Nanjing, which was opened to the public. He followed and developed ideas of the American educator John Dewey and proposed life education theory such as ‘life is education’, ‘society is a school’, and ‘teach, learn and act unite’ and explored new alternatives for Chinese education in that time. From 1931, he turned to mass education movements. From 1936 to 1938, he visited 28 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa to investigate their education and culture, to publicise Anti-Japanese efforts and to call for the overseas Chinese and students to support Anti-Japanese War. He dedicated his life to the people and mass education. He died of cerebral hemorrhage in Shanghai at the age of 56. The 10-volume *Complete Works of Tao Xingzhi* was published in 1992.
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Huang Chanhua's, 'Fojiao mingzong dayi'
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Tao Xingzhi
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Acquaintance with Indian Friends and Gandhi
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His contact with India began in Europe. In July 1936, Tao Xingzhi arrived in Britain by sea to attend the 7th assembly of the World New Education Federation, and delivered a report on *National Salvation Movement, Little Teacher Model and Mass Education Movement in China*. Mohan Lari, a representative from India, was interested in the Little Teacher Model as a solution of the shortfall of teaching staff and invited Tao Xingzhi to visit India and offer guidance to the mass education work. Tao Xingzhi agreed and fulfilled his promise two years later.
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While in the United States of America, Tao Xingzhi paid several visits to his mentor Dewey in early December of 1937. He requested him to contact and persuade some of the world’s leading figures, such as Romain Rolland, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, to co-sign a declaration to denounce Japan, and call people across the world to boycott Japanese goods and impose an embargo upon Japan and to stop all cooperation with the nation so as to provide an utmost support to China. On December 6, he drafted and sent a telegraph and a declaration to Wardha in Central Province of India (roughly equivalent to present Madhya Pradesh), requesting Gandhi to give a reply within five days. Anxious though, Tao Xingzhi knew that this request was a bit too far. Gandhi was busy and unsettled, and this telegraph might not have been timely delivered. Naturally, Gandhi gave his passionate support to Chinese, and wired back his consent on December 22. But, the declaration, titled ‘Our Attitude toward Japan’s Invasion of China’ was published on December 13, just signed by Dewey, Rolland, Einstein and Russell. The day before, the Japanese army seized Nanjing and started a massacre. The meaning of this declaration is self-evident.
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His efforts to obtain the support of Gandhi indicates that he then was fully aware of Gandhi’s fame and influence in the world, and he was good at diplomacy and organisation. A man ignorant of English could not do this. This declaration alone is a great credit to the Anti-Japanese War.
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Visit to Tagore and Gandhi
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Tao Xingzhi returned to China after staying in Europe and the United States for more than two years. He arrived in Cairo in late July of 1938 and visited Egyptian Museum of Ancient History and Pyramids. He arrived in Colombo, stayed at Victoria Hotel and travelled to India the next day. On the third morning, he came to Madras (present-day Chennai) and stayed at Clarence Hotel, with a spacious room and full board at Rupees 5 per day. He reached Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) two days later and planned to visit Tagore the following day. Mohan Lari had arranged everything for him. On July 27, while he was still in Egypt, as suggested by Mohan Lari, he separately wrote to Gandhi, Tagore and Bose to inform them of his schedule and added that with Gandhi’s ‘guidance and self-sacrifice always encourage Chinese’, Tagore’s ‘glorious speeches in China are lasting treasure and memory for Chinese people’, and he felt excited about the upcoming visit to India and meeting these two great men.
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On August 11, 1938, Tao Xingzhi arrived at Bolpur by train and instantly went to Visva-Bharati University to pay a visit to Tagore. He had earlier met Tagore once when the poet was in Beijing in 1924. Over a cup of tea, they listened to Bengali music and talked for an hour. Though his ideas about education differed much from those of Tagore, they still had many common points. Both wanted to rejuvenate the nation through education, establish an unconventional school, put forth their own ideas about education, carry out educational experiments, deign to raise education funds, devote their life to the cause of education and education was their life. But for Tagore’s old age and poor health, they should have had much more to talk about. Besides, Tao Xingzhi had a tight schedule. Tagore had a high opinion of Tao Xingzhi, saying that he was not only a creative educator, but was also a brave and excellent anti-fascism fighter.
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The next day, Tao Xingzhi travelled by train for a distance of 700 km to Wardha in Central Province of India, and from there went to Shegaon to visit Gandhi. In the afternoon of August 14, Gandhi received him in his three-room cottage. At that time, India was the third largest importer of Japanese products, and Tao Xingzhi put great hope on its resistance of Japanese goods. He believed, “If India can act like the United States, Japan will be hard to sustain its economy.” During the meet, he asked Gandhi to organise a special committee to lead the boycott. Days ago, he had made the same request to Tagore. Gandhi asked about education in China, Tao Xingzhi thus talked about the mass education movement in China, and Gandhi was attracted, and asked Tao Xingzhi to write an article in English to introduce this movement. Tao Xingzhi agreed, and he also inquired about education in India. Gandhi impressed him deeply as thin, somber, dignified and frugal.
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On August 15, Tao Xingzhi returned to Madras and visited Madras Museum the following day. He was back in Colombo on August 18. He boarded a French cruise on August 20 and wrote *An Outline of Overseas Journeys*. He arrived in Saigon on August 27. On September 26, he mailed ‘The People’s Education Movement’ to Gandhi, which was divided into three parts and was successively published on October 29, November 5 and November 19 in *Harijan*, an influential English magazine, which played an important role in India’s struggle for independence and enhancement of pariahs’ position. Gandhi was the chief editor.
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In his commentary, Gandhi said, “This pamphlet is very useful for us.” This article, about 12,000 Chinese characters, systematically introduces the author’s ideas about education, and is a valuable historical document witnessing India-China exchange on education thoughts. Gandhi is a great writer in English, and his publishing this article at least indicates that he appreciated Tao’s ideas about mass education and approved of his writing in English. Nearly 37 years after the death of Tao Xingzhi and nearly half a century after its publication in India, this English article was recovered and translated into Chinese. Its Chinese translation was published in Beijing in *Education Study* (Issue 4, 1983).
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(Liu Jian)