Speaking of Hu Shi, this modern cultural celebrity has three famous sayings handed down from generation to generation. The first sentence is: "study more problems and talk less about' ism'; The second sentence is: "Make bold assumptions and carefully verify"; The third sentence is the one mentioned above, "History is a little girl who can dress up. "

Looking carefully, the first famous saying comes from Hu Shi's article "Study more problems and talk less about" ism "published in the 3rd1issue of Weekly Review on July 20th, 2008. The second famous saying comes from Hu Shi's Scientific Methods of Sinologists in Qing Dynasty published in Peking University Monthly19 192 1 (revised in Hu Cun). So, where did this third famous saying about little girls come from? Mr. Xie Yong, a professor of Chinese Department of Xiamen University, who wrote The Unreliable History, once boldly assumed that Hu Shi never said that "history is a little girl who can dress up" and gave his reasons. According to Mr. Hu Shi's principle of "study more problems and talk less about' ism'", I will seriously verify Mr. Xie Yong's hypothesis.

The first thing to make sure is that Hu Shi did use the metaphor of "little girl"-"girl" to be exact. Peking University Publishing House published Collected Works of Hu Shi (II) on 1998 (edited by Hu Cun and Ouyang), and the article Experimentalism was included on pages 208-248. This article is very long. It turned out to be a speech delivered by Hu Shi in the spring of the 8th year of the Republic of China (19 19). Published in New Youth (1915,09), Volume 6, No.4, and then published by Peking University Academic Toastmasters Association.