Chen Hongmou

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Chen Hongmou (陳宏謀 styles: 汝咨，榕門) born on October 10, 1696, died July 14 1771. Chinese official, scholar, and philosopher, who is widely regarded as a model official of the Qing dynasty.

[edit] Life

Chen was born in Lingui, Guangxi province, to a family who migrated from Chenzhou in Hunan province in the late Ming dynasty. He was noted for the longest total service and most provincial posts than any other official during the Qing dynasty. In their work Anthology of Qing Statecraft Writings, He Changling and Wei Yuan praised him as an exemplary official, being surpassed only by Gu Yanwu.

[edit] Philosophy

Chen considered himself a disciple of Zhu Xi, but condemned various types of intellectual partisanship. His essays were very progressive for his time - in his vigorous advocation of education for people everywhere, he was one of the first philosophers to clearly state the idea that women and non-Chinese tribes could, and should, receive the same education has Han Chinese men.

[edit] Further reading

• Rowe, William T. Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.