Qian Xuantong 錢玄同

Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung (12 September 1887-17 January 1939), applied the critical methods of Hu Shih to the study of Chinese classical texts. He taught for many years at Peking University, where he contributed articles to the Hsin ch'ing-nien [new youth] and served as one of its editors. He was also a leader in the movement to devise a phonetic system for Chinese ideographs and to simplify Chinese script. Wuhsing, Chekiang, was the birthplace of Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung. His father, Ch'ien Chengch'ang (1825-1898), was a classical scholar who served as a secretary in the Board of Rites in the imperial government; in his later years, he taught at the Yangchow Academy. Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung's elder brother, Ch'ien Hsun (d. 1 922) , was a diplomat who served in the Chinese embassies in Russia, the Netherlands, and Italy; he later was appointed supervisor of Chinese students in Japan.

Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung was a precocious student who showed a keen interest in philological studies. Influenced by his reading of Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (q.v.) and Tsou Jung, he cut off his queue in 1904 as a gesture of defiance against Manchu rule and refused to date a small journal, the Hu-chou pai-hua-pao [Huchow vernacular magazine], which he and friends had established at Wuhsing, according to the conventional chronology using the reign period of the Kuanghsu emperor. In 1906, when his elder brother went to Japan as supervisor of Chinese students, Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung accompanied him and began to study Japanese and education at Waseda University in Tokyo. There he came into contact with Chang Ping-lin and Liu Shih-p'ei and joined the T'ung-meng-hui. Ch'ien was particularly impressed by Chang Ping-lin and soon became one of Chang's most devoted disciples. In 1907 Ch'ien, together with Lu Hsün (Chou Shu-jen), Chou Tso-jen, Chu Hsi-tsu (qq.v.), and others, organized the Kuo-hsueh chench'i-she [society for the promotion of national learning] in Tokyo and invited Chang Ping-lin, who was then editor in chief of the Min Pao [people's journal], to be its director and to teach them Chinese philology and literature. About the same time, influenced by Liu Shih-p'ei and Chang Chi in Japan and by the New Century group {see Wu Chih-hui) in France, Ch'ien also became interested in anarchism. He also began to study Esperanto.

Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung returned to China in 1910 and taught for a short period at a middle school in his native Chekiang before obtaining a post as a junior official in the provincial department of education. In 1913, on the recommendation of Huang K'an (q.v.), another disciple of Chang Ping-lin, he went to Peking to teach classics and philology at the Peking Higher Normal College. In 1915 he joined the faculty of Peking University. Ch'ien and Shen Yin-mo (q.v.) reportedly recommended Ch'en Tu-hsiu (q.v.) to Ts'ai Yuan-p'ei, the new chancellor of National Peking University, for the post of dean of the college of letters. In any event, Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung was associated with Ch'en from 1917 to 1919 when Ch'en was one of the most prominent leaders of China's intellectual avant garde.

At Peking University, Ch'en Tu-hsiu gave full support to Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung and Hu Shih in advocating the use of pai-hua [the vernacular] in place of the classical Chinese language. In January 1918 the magazine Hsin cKing-nien [new youth], which had previously been edited by Ch'en Tu-hsiu alone, was placed under a six-man editorial committee. In addition to Ch'en Tu-hsiu, the group included Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung, Hu Shih, Li Ta-chao, Liu Fu, and Shen Yin-mo (qq.v.), one man editing the magazine each month in rotation.

Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung's principal scholarly contributions were made in the fields of classical studies and philology. In his early years, like Chang Ping-lin, he adhered to the ku-wen [old text] school of the Chinese classics. From about 1910 to 1917, however, Ch'ien was a partisan of the chin-wen [new text] school, which held that the old text versions of the Chinese classics were less authentic than the new text versions current during the Former Han dynasty. Ch'ien accepted the arguments of K'ang Yu-wei (q.v.) and of K'ang's disciple Ts'ui Shih. After 1919 Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung and Ku Chieh-kang (q.v.) began new studies of the major Chinese classical texts to ascertain the authorship and authenticity of the ancient records. Both men had been influenced strongly by the critical methods of Hu Shih (q.v.), although they had been students of Ts'ui Shih at Peking University. As a result of their research they rejected the conclusions of both traditional schools. Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung became so fervent in suspecting the authenticity of the ancient classics that in August 1925 he changed his family name to I-ku [doubting antiquity] ; in later years he regularly signed his name (in roman letters) as Yiku Hsuan-t'ung.

After the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Ch'ien also became an advocate of language reform. With Li Chin-hsi, Y. R. Chao (Chao Yuen-ren, q.v.), and Lin Yü-t'ang (q.v.), he compiled a dictionary of the Chinese language on phonetic principles and worked to standardize the romanization system for Chinese characters. Ch'ien advocated using a simplified form of Chinese script. Of a list of 2,000 abbreviated characters which he submitted to the ministry of education, more than 300 were officially accepted and recommended for public adoption. In addition to his writings in the Hsin ch'ingnien and in the Ku-shih pien [symposium on ancient Chinese history], Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung contributed articles to the Tu-li chou-pao [independent weekly], the Yti-ssu [thread of talk], the Nu-li chou-pao [endeavor weekly], and the Kuo-yü chou-k'an [national language weekly]. His "Ch'ung-lun ching chin-ku-wen wen-t'i" [re-examination of problems involved in the chin-wen and ku-wen classics], originally written in 1931, was later translated into Japanese by Tanaka Shinji and published in Tokyo. His Shuo-wen Tuan-chu hsiao-chien consisted of notes on the analysis by Tuan Yü-ts'ai (1 735— 1815; ECCP, II, 782-84) of the characters in the ancient dictionary, Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, completed in 100 A. D. Another etymological study, the Shuo-wen pu-shou chin-tu [rearrangement of the Shuo-wen radicals according to modern phonetic system], was completed in 1933, but was not published until 1958. Ch'ien Hsuant'ung spent his later years in north China. He died of apoplexy at Peiping on 17 January 1939. The best known of his sons was the nuclear physicist Ch'ien San-ch'iang (q.v.).

—— Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (1967-71)