At the beginning of the republican era, Tsai Yuan-pei, then Minister of Education, ordered "all recitation of the classics in elementary schools to cease." Then he ended the reading of the classics in courses for future elementary and junior high school teachers, and this educational tradition was finally put to a halt.
民國元年，當時的教育部長蔡元培下令「小學堂讀經一律廢止」，接著又廢除師範中、小學讀經科，行之不輟的讀經傳統至此終結。