Tao Xingzhi (1891-1946) graduated from Columbia University in the United States. Like Hu Shi, he was a student of John Dewey, a well-known American educator.

After he returned to China, he tried a new teaching method that combined education, study and practice. John Dewey said Tao Xingzhi was his student, but he outshone him a thousand timesAfter studying at Teachers College during 1916-1917, Tao returned home to become an influential exponent of modern education in China, and one of the most renowned educators in Chinese history. He developed an original synthesis of Deweyan and Chinese approaches to progressive education based on a first hand study and analysis of Chinese life and society.

Tao Xingzhi(1891-1946)'s educational theory and practice are one of the most fascinating chapters in modem Chinese history and remain a powerful source of inspiration in China's search for a modem identity. In the context of China's national crisis and cultural disintegration in the first half of the 20th century, Tao's life and work can be understood as an effort of a modem intellectual towards self invention and national salvation with three outstanding characteristics: ( 1) his critique of both Chinese traditional culture and education, its more recent cultural and educational Westemization, and his selective synthesis of Chinese and Western cultural and educational elements, (2) his radicalization of Deweyan ideas of progressive education and creation of his own theory of "Life Education", (3) power of his personality derived from his self invention of a new national character drawing both from Chinese and Christian tradition.