蔡元培在上海南洋公学特班任教期间,主动吸收和研究西方近代文化,在思想认识上达到了新的高度,成为具有民主意识的新式知识分子。他还广泛结交具有进步与革命思想的新派人士,积极参与办报、办理新式教育等变革社会的活动,加入革命组织,最终走上资产阶级民主革命的道路。 Cai Yuanpei took the initiative to absorb and study western modern culture during his teaching in Shanghai Nanyang High School and reached a new height in his ideological understanding and became a new intellectual with democratic awareness. He also made extensive exchanges with new entrants who have the ideas of progress and revolution, took an active part in reforming the society by running newspapers and handling new forms of education, joined the revolutionary organizations, and finally embarked on the path of a bourgeois democratic revolution.