feng youlan was born on 4 december 1895 in tanghe county, nanyang, henan, china, to a middle-class family. his younger sister was feng yuanjun, who would become a famous chinese writer. he studied philosophy in the china public school in shanghai, between 1912–1915, a preparatory school for college, then studied in chunghua university, wuhan (later merged into central china normal university) and peking university between 1915 and 1918, where he was able to study western philosophy and logic as well as chinese philosophy.