Nanjing Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall

Nanjing Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall

The Nanjing Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall is a classic red tourism attraction.

At the foot of the picturesque Laoshan Mountain in the northern suburbs of Nanjing lies a once world-renowned place—Xiaozhuang. In the late 1920s, the renowned Chinese educator Mr. Tao Xingzhi came to the countryside in simple attire and founded a new type of experimental rural normal school here, known as Xiaozhuang Normal School. At the same time, based on his established "life education" theory, he carried out bold educational innovations and initiated a great and remarkable "Xiaozhuang Experiment" that captured worldwide attention. However, the Xiaozhuang Normal School was unreasonably shut down by the Kuomintang authorities after just three years. Tao Xingzhi was deeply attached to Xiaozhuang and always hoped to restore the school to continue the experiment, but he was unable to fulfill this wish before his death. People buried Tao Xingzhi here, allowing him to rest forever on the beloved land of Xiaozhuang. In August 1982, Tao Xingzhi’s tomb was designated as a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit.

In 1993, the Jiangsu Provincial Government and the Nanjing Municipal Government allocated over 700,000 yuan to build a new building for the Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall on the site of the former "Plow Palace" (the original auditorium of Xiaozhuang Normal School). The design mimics the appearance of the "Plow Palace," featuring a large roof, upturned eaves, thick ridges, a circular tower-style gatehouse, and a long row of lattice wood windows on the front facade—both classic and dignified, yet novel and unique. The entire memorial covers an area of 800 square meters, with the gatehouse standing 25 meters high. Above the main gate hang two bronze plaques: one inscribed "Plow Palace" by Zhang Jinfu and the other "Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall" by Lu Dingyi. Inside the foyer stands a full-body bronze statue of Tao Xingzhi, with the golden words "The Great People's Educator Mr. Tao Xingzhi" personally inscribed by Mao Zedong in the background. The hall includes three exhibition rooms, as well as a lecture hall, reception room, reference room, and offices.

Mr. Tao Xingzhi (1891–1946) was a great people's educator, a great democratic fighter, a communist fighter, and a great patriot in China. He devoted his life to national liberation, social progress, and educational reform, making immortal contributions to the country and its people. He tirelessly explored and persevered in establishing a people's education system. In the latter ten years of his life, he firmly supported the line of the Chinese Communist Party and devoted himself to the struggle for national and democratic revolution, becoming, in the words of Zhou Enlai, "an outside Bolshevik who unreservedly followed the Party." His educational philosophy has been highly praised by educators both in China and abroad and remains relevant to this day.

The exhibition halls of the memorial are divided into eight sections: (1) Childhood and Youth (1891–1917); (2) Advocacy for Educational Reform (1918–1925); (3) Rural Education Period (1926–1930); (4) Mass Education Period (1931–1935); (5) National Crisis Education to Wartime Education (1936–1938); (6) Comprehensive Education Period (1939–1945); (7) Democratic Education Period (1945–1946); (8) Commemorating and Learning from Tao Xingzhi.

Each section displays a wealth of artifacts and historical photographs, including over 380 precious photos and more than 250 items such as Tao Xingzhi’s writings, personal belongings, and manuscripts, vividly and comprehensively reflecting the great and glorious life of Mr. Tao Xingzhi.

The towering memorial building, together with Tao Xingzhi’s tomb and the Xiaozhuang Martyrs Monument, forms a unified complex known as the "Xingzhi Garden," covering an area of 30 acres. In 1994, General Secretary - personally inscribed the three large characters "Xingzhi Garden," which were engraved on the granite wall at the garden’s entrance. A "Xingzhi Garden" monument was also erected along the main pathway in the garden. The garden is thoughtfully landscaped with features such as lawns, ponds, and pavilions. It also houses the Xiaozhuang Martyrs Monument, whose base is inscribed with the martyrs’ portraits and biographies, ensuring that future generations will forever remember the heroic deeds of these martyrs. "Xingzhi Garden" integrates visiting, paying respects, sightseeing, and resting, and has become one of the moral education bases for young people.

The Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall was initially built in 1951 when Xiaozhuang Normal School reopened. After the Cultural Revolution, the memorial resumed exhibitions. In 1985, the Nanjing Municipal Government funded the expansion of the hall, enriched its exhibits, and redesigned the displays. The name of the hall was inscribed by Comrade Lu Dingyi and officially opened to the public on September 10 of the same year, Teachers' Day. It attracted a continuous stream of visitors and gained considerable influence both domestically and internationally. In 1993, upon the suggestion of former State Councilor Zhang Jinfu and the China Tao Xingzhi Research Association, the memorial was rebuilt again.

The Tao Xingzhi Memorial Hall houses a collection of over 1,000 cultural relics, including a wool sweater given to Tao Xingzhi by Zhou Enlai in the 1940s, clothes worn by Tao Xingzhi, and items he used such as leather bags, inkstones, brushes, and paper fans. There are also the only surviving plaster molds of Tao Xingzhi’s face and hands, made on the day of his passing by the famous painter Xu Shiqi, preserving a lifelike image of his facial features and hands at the end of his life. Additionally, the collection includes Tao Xingzhi’s passport from his overseas studies, his doctoral certificate and academic gown, a tiger painting gifted by He Xiangning, clothes and a pocket watch presented by General Feng Yuxiang, as well as a large number of manuscripts, publications, and works by students of Yucai School—all of which are extremely valuable. Notably, Tao Xingzhi’s own collection of original photographs numbers over 700, all clear and diverse in content. For example, the photo of Tao Xingzhi with Mao Zedong and others at Chongqing Airport, and the photo of Tao Xingzhi in front of Marx’s tomb, were both kept at the bottom of Tao Xingzhi’s own trunk, demonstrating his profound reverence for great figures like Marx and Mao. Other photos, such as those from his study abroad in the United States and his time in Xiaozhuang, are also invaluable materials for studying Tao Xingzhi.

For a long time, the memorial has not only received Tao Xingzhi researchers and foreign scholars from across the country, providing them with resources, but has also actively participated in organizing academic research activities related to Mr. Tao Xingzhi. As early as 1980, the memorial compiled the *Collected Works of Tao Xingzhi*, published by Jiangsu People's Publishing House, which became the first collection of Tao Xingzhi’s works published after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It was widely welcomed and went through multiple reprints, remaining in high demand. The memorial has also successively edited and published several works, including *Tao Xingzhi and Xiaozhuang Normal School*, as well as the first elective textbook for secondary normal schools in Jiangsu Province, *Research on Tao Xingzhi’s Educational Thought*. In 1996, on the 50th anniversary of Tao Xingzhi’s passing, the memorial participated in editing and publishing the large-format pictorial *Tao Xingzhi*, which remains the most comprehensive and complete pictorial on Tao Xingzhi to date in China.