Ts'ai Yüan-p'ei (1867-1940) was the foremost liberal educator in 20th-century China and gained renown as a synthesizer of Chinese and Western ideas.

Ts'ai Yüan-p'ei was born into a merchant family in Chekiang Province in southeastern China. A brilliant student of the Chinese classics, he became, at 23, one of the youngest holders of the coveted chin-shih (the highest academic degree). In 1892 he was appointed to the elite Hanlin Academy. Believing the educational system to be responsible for China's defeat by the Japanese in 1895 and for the failure of the reform movement of 1898, he returned to Chekiang to devote himself to educational reform.

By 1902 Ts'ai had become involved in revolutionary political activities in Shanghai. There he helped found anti-Manchu educational and political societies, schools, and a newspaper. In a pattern that was to be typical throughout his life, Ts'ai soon left politics to return to the...