Abstract: Borrowing the term “Lesenrevolution”from the Western historical studies of reading, the present work portrays the transformation from “recitation” to “lecture” in elementary education during the period of late Qing and early Republic and discloses the post hoc perspective implicated in the “transformation” itself. First, the paper locates the discipline of recitation in the classical reading conventions by revisiting the actual reading scenes in the late Qing period. A closer investigation into the field of discourse on the education reform at the turn of the century follows to reveal how the dogma of “recitation” was stigmatized under the influence of scientific educational concepts. “Chinese recitation” was degraded as the opposite of the “Western lecture”, taking the blame for the corruption of the traditional Chinese scholarship as a whole. Accompanying the importation of the modern disciplinary institution, the division of subjects and the phased teaching method, the new “pedagogy” and new teaching space casted a huge impact on reading ctivities. The mechanism of such an impact will be examined last. The transformation from “recitation” to “lecture” may well be a “construction” conjured up by the progressives who were inspired by the “foreign eyes.” The affirmation of the new established relations between “recitation” and “lecture” severely simplified and reduced the sophisticated conditions of the classical Chinese education and the Western modern education. However, the reformist voice instigated the implementation of the new disciplinary institution and the publication of new textbooks and pedagogy, which solidified the transformation as an irreversible trend in modern China.