Background
Dr. Fung Yu-lan was in Henan Province.
Dr. Fung Yu-lan was in Henan Province.
Mr. Fung first studied philosophy in the National University of Peking where he graduated in 1918. He then went to Columbia University, New York City, where after years of research he fulfilled the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1923. His dissertation entitled “A Comparative Study of Life Ideals,” was highly commended by Professor John Dewey. It was in press and would be published in a few weeks by the Conuniercial Press.
As it was an interesting and rather complete comparison of leading Chinese systems of philosophy with those of leading western philosophies it was safe to predict that the book would have a large sale in China and abroad, for it would be published in English.
Dr. Fung with the increasing years showed a growing zeal for the advancement of the people of his native province and of all China. Philosophy was his chosen field. He didn’t think of philosophy as a mere abstraction with no real relation to life and history but rather held with a great scholar that “History was only Philosophy teaching by example.” The new Chung Chow University at Kaifeng, Henan, with its teaching staff of sixty faculty members, could not boast of a more prominent acquisition than that of its new Professor of Philosophy, Fung Yu-lan, Ph. D., who was doing a great work in helping to build up for interior China a great modern school.
Dr. Fung was also author of "Life’s Ideals” published in Chinese by the Commercial Press. He was contributing editor of the International Journal of Ethics, Chicago; the Journal of Philosophy, New York and other literary and academic magazines in China. He was the editor of the Mind’s Echo, a bi-weekly paper published in Kaifeng. In addition to his important chair in Chung Chow University, Dr. Fung was Dean of the Department of Liberal Arts.