Nanjing University a center of Confucian thought and humanistic scholarship. During this period, Nanjing University was known as the foremost "Oriental Education Centre" and recognized as an academic and cultural exchange centre for east and west. Many scholars visited and instructed there, including the American educationist Paul Monroe, W. H. Kilpatrick, E. L. Thorndike, philosopher John Dewey, British philosopher Bertrand Russell, German philosopher Hans Driesch and the Indian (also Bengali) poet Rabindranath Tagore. The university became the capital national university after Nanking was made the capital by Nationalist Government, initially renamed National Dyisyi Chungshan University (or called National Nanking Chungshan University) in
The Bertrand Russell Case was not a student at CCNY. The judge hearing the case was the Irish Catholic John E. McGeehan who on the basis of four of Russell's popular and non-philosophic books ("On Education", "What I Believe", "Education and the Modern World", and "Marriage and Morals") ruled against 'a chair of indecency,' finding Russell morally unfit to teach philosophy. In the books, Russell advocated sex before marriage, among other things. Russell was prevented from appearing in court and an appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union was denied in several courts. The City of New York's lawyers told the Board of Higher