"The significance of Peking University is that in almost all times, it has been trying to effectively cope with social changes, rather than escaping." Dai Jinhua, a famous scholar and professor of Chinese Department in Peking University, told China Newsweek. Because of this, the development of Peking University has long gone beyond the scope of educational history and has become the epitome of modern history and the yardstick of social spirit.

In the shock and conflict with the times, Peking University has formed a unique spiritual tradition, but this tradition itself is full of reflexivity. It has undergone constant confirmation and rewriting, and it has also been broken and restarted many times. Many people try to capture its features with concise words, but more and more text notes are left in the end.

The direct result is that Peking University has no motto and no school song. Nearly forty years later, Peking University is still a key section of the train of the times. "It has gone through several sharp turns, and it will lose some people in any sharp turn," Chen Pingyuan, a famous scholar and former head of the Chinese Department of Peking University, told China Newsweek.

Chen Pingyuan paid close attention to the modern higher education system in China for a long time and published many works related to Peking University. "We only know that this train is moving forward. This general direction is right. The sharp turn in the middle was omitted by us and became a straight line. " He added.