Ye Shengtao

Mr. Ye Shengtao

Ye Shengtao (Wade-Giles system: Yeh Sheng-t'ao)(葉聖陶 1894—1988; real name Ye Shaojun 葉紹鈞 ; courtesy name (zi 字): Bingchen (秉臣) ; pseudonym: Yetao (葉陶), Shengtao (聖陶), Guishan (桂山) etc.)

Ye was a prominent author, educationist and publisher. He was one of the founders of Seminar in literature (文學研究會),the first literature association during the May Fourth Movement. Throughout his years of life, he was dedicated to language education. His strongest advocation was that 'Literature is for Life'(文學為人生).

Biography

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Young Ye Shengtao

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

Ye was born on 28 October 1894 in Wu county (吳縣), Suzhou (蘇州市), Jiangsu Province, China. His father worked as a book keeper for a landlord and they lived a very modest life.

In 1907, Ye entered Caoqiao Secondary School (草橋中學). After his graduation, he worked as a primary school teacher for 10 years. However, Ye was dismissed by the school in 1914. During his hermitry, he devoted himself entirely to writing ancient Chinese (文言文 Wenyen-wen) novels which were published in “Libailiu Magazine” (《禮拜六》 ”Saturday Magazine”). After leaving the primany school ,he became the Chinese teacher of the school set up by the Shanghai Commercial Bookstore and at the same time, he became the editor of primary books of the Shanghai Commercial Bookstore in 1915. He became an magazine editor, secondary school teacher and university lecturer.

SHENGTAO AS WRITER AND EDITOR

Under the influences of May Fourth Movement in 1919 (Wu-si Yundong 五四運動;that is commonly known as the “New Culture Movement” 新文化運動), Ye indulged himself in literary career. He participated in a student organization Xinchao She (“New Tide Society” 新潮社1919-1920) of Beijing University (北京大學), and started publishing fiction, poem, prose, literary criticism and scripts of drama. Ye was also an editor in PuShe( 樸社, 1923)which was a bookstore held by literators.In 1921, Ye, Mao Dun (茅盾, 1896-1981) and Zheng Zhenduo (鄭振鐸, 1898-1958) founded the earliest literary society of the New Literature Movement, the "Wenxue Yanjiu Hui", (文學研究會 "Literary Association"), advocating realism art and rejecting the perception that “Art is for Art's Sake”.

WORK AT GOVERNMENT

Following the Liberation (解放), Ye served as the Vice-director of General Administration of Press and Publication (出版總署副署長), the President of People Education Publication (人民教育出版社社長), and the Vice-minster of Ministry of Education (教育部副部長) etc. He was also elected as the Committee of the Fifth Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (第五屆全國人大常委委員), the National Committee of The Fifth Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC — 第五屆全國政協常委委員), and the Chairman of China Association for Promoting Democracy (民進中央主席).

Ye finally died in Beijing on 16 February 1988.

Influences on Chinese Society:

The Father of Modern Chinese Education

Though writing many letters to teachers and students in which suggesting practical and important guidance for the education in China, Ye had a great impact on improving the Modern Chinese language education. On the whole, as a famous educator, he brought a new point to the Chinese educator which was " The goal of education is not to educate."(「教是為了不教」), this means that students should be taught the methods to learn, not always the detailed knowledge. This idea was a breakthrough towards the traditional Chinese education, which only relied on memorization and indoctrination. He promoted critical thinking and raised the importance of personal judgement.He also suggested the importance of learning skills , which should be built inside the students. These are the base for students' life-long learning.

Ye is an excellent educator and talent scout. He educated and discovered many outstanding young authors, including Ba Jin (巴金 1904-), Ding Ling (丁玲 1904-1986), and Dai Wangshu (戴望舒 1905-1950).

Contribution to Journalism:

Ye was eager to advocate the standardization of modern Chinese language, including the standardization of grammar, rhetoric, vocabulary, punctuation, simplified character, and the elimination of variant characters (異體字). He also compiled and standardized the Chinese character for publishing, formulated Chinese Phoneticization Scheme (Hanyu Pinyin Fang’an 《漢語拼音方案》). All his efforts help to improve the quality and efficiency of editorial work.

And most importantly, he promoted the vernacular Chinese (白話文) in publishing. His magazines and newspapers were mostly published in vernacular style, which greatly facilitates the journalists and readers, thus encouraging the rapid development of journalism.

Publications

In his entire life, Ye was very much involved in the field of journalism. He edited many famous magazines and newspapers, below are some of his works:

"Saturday Magazine" Libailiu Magazine《禮拜六》
"Shanghai News of Current Affairs" Shanghai Shishi Xinbao《上海時事新報》
"Shanghai Nationalists’ Daily" Shanghai Minguo Ribao 《上海民國日報》
"The Literature Weekly" Wenxue Zhoubao 《文學周報》
"The Chinese Language and Literature Monthly" Guowen Yuehan《國文月刊》
"Suzhou Commentary" Suzhou Pinglun 《蘇州評論》
"Women’s Magazine" Fùnu Zázhì 《婦女雜誌》
"Novel Monthly" Xiaoshuo Yuebao 《小說月報》
"High School Students" Zhongxuésheng 《中學生》
"Enlightened Youth" Kaiming Shaonian 《開明少年》
"Chinese Authors" Zhongguo Zuojia 《中國作家》
"People's Education" Rénmín Jiàoyù 《人民教育》
"Chinese Language" Zhongguó Yuwén 《中國語文》
"Poems" Shi 詩

Ye and Xia Mianzun (夏丏尊, 1886-1946)were also the founders of "Novel Monthly"Xiaoshuo Yuebao 《小說月報》and "High School Students" Zhongxuésheng 《中學生》

Contribution to Literature:

His "Ni Huanzhi" (《倪煥之》), published in 1928, is one of the famous autobiographical novels in modern China. Ye was the first writer who created fairy tales in China. His writing "Daocaoren"<稻草人>was very popular and aroused the interest of thousands youngsters. "Daocaoren"<稻草人> contained three stories which were about the unfortunate destiny of women in that generation . It was the mirror of the times. His student Ding Ling praised that Ye's fairy tales could provoke readers to think deeply , we could not treat his writings as stories only . Another 'fairy tale' is "Gudai yingxiong de shixiang" ("A Stone Figure of an Anient Hero") 《古代英雄的石像》.This story was about a stone, in fact, it's background message was to ridicule the top officals, it was a creative writing style at that time.

Ye also had an insight in the China society. In 1911, he started to write short stories which were published in Short Stories Series, Saturday and The Sea of Short Stories. They were written in classic Chinese. Though the contents are not expressed in details, they are truthful and thoughtful. Mostly, they are about some gloomy experiences of people in the society, for example, lower class people being exploited. He also saw, in the society, urban people being indifferent, inconsiderate and selfish to each other. Ye understood there was nothing he could do for it so that he wrote some other types of articles to relieve himself from the reality, for example, Hidden love. We can see that Ye is not only a writer, he also pay attention to the places where he lived. He felt sympathy to the society so that he also used his stories to express his grievance and helplessness.

Being an educationalist in his early career, he deeply understood the situations of teachers facing. Most of his works related to the intellectuals were about how they strive for their lives by forgiving what their values towards the society. They were even willing to do anything for the exchange of existence. One of the representative stories of him is The Headmaster. This stories is talking about an intellectuals had an enthusiasm toward creating ideas. However, while facing the feudal society at that time, he carried so many badgers to himself. He chose to conform to the feudal system that something he did not agree with.

Characters in Ye’s work are vivid and he deeply penetrate to their inner feelings and express in the stories. He also noticed the society and saw different social phenomenon that inspired him to write.A popular writer Zhao Jing Shen(趙景深, 1902-1985)praised that Ye was a special figure in the field of literature.He emphasized the importance of feelings and emotion through out his journals but at the same time, one should strike a balance and maintain a neutral role in writing journals. The expression of emotions and feelings only build on top of truth and reality which make the story full of power and motives. "Emotions seems like the shinning light, while description and assessment are spotted by this light." said by him, shows his outlook on writing journals, which is not only descripting a story , but to send messages to those who read the story.

Bibliography

"The Snowing Morning" Xue zhao 《雪朝》 (co-written with Zhu Ziqing etc.) (Poems) 1922
"A scarecrow" Dao cao ren 《稻草人》 (Fiction) 1923
"Under the horizon" Xian xia 《線下》 (Short stories) 1925
"Ni Huanzhi (the name of the charcter)" 《倪煥之》 (Fiction) 1929
"A Stone Figure of an Anient Hero" Gu dai ying xiong de shi xiang. 《古代英雄的石像》 (Fairy-tales) 1931 .
An Excercise in Weiyanju" Wei yan ju xi zuo 《未厭居習作》 ( Prose) 1935
"The Collections of Ye Shengtao's Short Stories" Shengtao duan pian xiao shuo ji 《聖陶短篇小說集》 (Short Stories collections)) 1936
"Selected Collections of Ye Shengtao" Ye Shaojun xuan ji 葉紹鈞選集 (Collectanea) 1936
"A Guide to Skimming" Lue du zhi dao ju yu 《略讀指導舉隅》 (Educational) 1946, (co-written with Zhu Ziqing 朱自清)
"The Study of Fairy Tales" Ertong Wenxue Yanjiu 《兒童文學研究》 1947
"A Guide to Intensive Reading" Jing du zhi dao ju yu.《精讀指導舉隅.》 (Educational) 1948
"Recordings of Writing" Xie zuo za tan 《寫作雜談》 (Educational) 1951
"Selected fairy-tales of Ye" Ye Shengtao tonghua xuan 《葉聖陶童話選》 (Fairy-Tale) 1956
"Ye Shengtao's Collectanea" Ye Shengtao chuban wenji.《葉聖陶出版文集》 (Collectanea) 1958
"Resistance" Kang zheng 《抗爭》 (Short stories) 1959
" The Night " Ye 《夜》 1959
"An ordinary story"《Ping chang de gu shi 《平常的故事》 1959
"Light wave" Wei bo 《微波》 1959
"The Collection of Poems" Qie cun ji 《篋存集》 (Poems) 1960
"Mr Pan in a Rough Time" Pan xian sheng zai nan zhong 《潘先生在難中》 (Short Stories) 1964
"I & Sichuan" Wo yu Sichuan 《我與四川》 (proses & poems) 1984
"The Speaking of Literary works" Wen zhang jianghua 《文章講話》 (co-written with Xia Mianzun 夏丏尊) (Educational) 1997
"The Heart of Literature" Wen xin 《文心》 (Educational) 1998(co-written with Xia Mianzun 夏丏尊)
"72 Topics about Literature" Wen hua qi shi er jiang 《文話七十二講》 (Educational) 1999, (co-written with Xia Mianzun 夏丏尊)
"Novel Monthly"《小說月報》(1910-1932)