Mr Tao Xingzhi is the most influential and famous progressive educator in China after the May 4th Movement. He lived in the great transformation period of the old democratic revolution and the new democratic revolution in China. 19 14 to study in the United States. 19 16 After returning to China, he chose a reformist road of saving the country through education. He used to be the education director of Nanjing Normal University. 1920, Director-General of China Education Improvement Society. 1923, with patriotic enthusiasm, he and Zhu initiated the establishment of "China Civic Education Promotion Association" and actively advocated the civic education movement. He believes that "civilian education is the most important way to transform the social environment" and can "infer the fate of the country". He also fantasized about using civilian education to "open up" the relationship between the rich and the poor, thus "creating a society extending in all directions." 1926, Tao Xingzhi drafted the "Declaration on Reforming Rural Education in China" for the China Education Reform Association, proposing "raising one million, recruiting one million comrades, advocating one million schools and reforming one million villages." Determined to make rural schools the center of transforming rural life, Xiaozhuang School was established in the second year. During the initial period of this experimental rural normal school, Tao Xingzhi established his own theories such as "life is education", "society is school", "integration of teaching and learning" and "working hard at work" and tried them out in the school. 1930 In May, Xiaozhuang was seized by the Kuomintang reactionaries, and Tao Xingzhi was wanted and fled to Japan. 193 1 After returning to Shanghai in spring, he engaged in popular science education, advocated "scientific marriage movement" and founded "natural science park". 1932, the "Shanhai Engineering Group" was established between Shanghai and Baoshan (Mengjiamuqiao Village), which put forward a new utopian fantasy of "keeping health by working, learning as a bright idea and saving lives by groups" and advocated "the integration of workshops, schools and society"; "Everyone produces, everyone grows, everyone helps each other equally, and everyone defends themselves! Then what a solemn country the Republic of China has become! The new life of the Chinese nation lurks in the seeds of the engineering group. " Tao Xingzhi regards the engineering group as "the life-saving circle of the Chinese nation". Later, however, the engineers were stopped by enemy gunfire.

Tao Xingzhi's early educational thought and practice are undoubtedly valuable. However, without the independent liberation of the Chinese nation and the political and economic turnaround of the workers, peasants and working people, it is only an illusion to transform the countryside with education. More importantly, it runs counter to the revolutionary task, takes the reformist road and builds an imaginary utopia. In the end, we can only get rid of the revolution and embark on the road of "saving the country through education". Tao Xingzhi's early thoughts and practices basically belong to the reformist category of "saving the country through education". Influenced by Dewey, he moved his theoretical transformation form to China, which is one of the main reasons why Tao Xingzhi ran into a wall everywhere. Fortunately, Tao Xingzhi realized his mistakes in time and soon embarked on the road of people's democratic revolution.