Chapter 69 educate

Jiang Menglin stayed in Japan for a month, and he had a very good impression of Japan: "The whole country is like a big garden, the people are neatly dressed, and the city is clean. They may be very proud in their hearts, but they are very polite to strangers." He believes: "Forced education makes The general standard of (Japanese) citizens is much higher than that of China, and this may be the secret of Japan becoming a world power.” This also became one of the reasons why Jiang Menglin decided to devote himself to education in the future, hoping that education would change China’s destiny.

After studying in the United States, Jiang Menglin entered the Department of Agriculture at the University of California with the ambition of improving agriculture to save the country.One morning, Jiang was preparing to go to the farm to watch the cows being milked. On the way, he met a group of jumping children going to school.He suddenly thought: "I'm here to study how to cultivate animals and plants, why don't I study how to cultivate talents?" So he didn't go to the farm anymore, but ran up to the hills of Berkeley, sat under an ancient oak tree, and stared at the farm. Looking at the beautiful scenery of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Harbor under the sun, thoughts were running up and down in my mind, and I counted the causes and consequences of the rise and fall of China's past dynasties.Suddenly, there was a group of innocent children in front of his eyes, gushing out of the waves of the bay like Lingbo fairies, asking him to provide them with a school to study, so he resolutely decided to transfer to the School of Social Sciences, focusing on education division.Later, Jiang Menglin went to Columbia University to study for a doctorate in education, under the tutelage of Dewey, a famous American pragmatist philosopher and educator.

After returning from studying abroad, Jiang Menglin and several friends began to publish the monthly "New Education" under the sponsorship of Peking University and the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association, edited by Jiang Ren.After the magazine was founded, the sales volume reached 10,000 copies in six months.Its main goal is to "cultivate healthy individuals and create an evolved society". Jiang Menglin participated in the student movement when he was young, but he did not advocate the student movement in the future.After the May 4th Movement, Jiang Menglin warned his students: "If we really want to save the country, we must first seek to improve our culture. ... I hope that you, the ability of self-government, should study academics and give full play to everything in order to improve culture. We must also develop a strong spirit. Physical fitness, the spirit of unity, in order to improve society in the future, create culture, and take on various major responsibilities.”

After the May 4th Movement, students became increasingly radical. Hu Shi and Jiang Menglin jointly published "Our Hope for Students".The article wrote: "The absurd middle-aged and elderly people make troubles, but they want underage students to abandon their studies and waste their time to intervene and correct them. This is the most uneconomical thing in the world!" Lin Deyang, a Peking University student committed suicide, and Luo Jialun wrote an article "Is Youth Suicide or Society Killing Youth?" "talked about the ugliness of society, but did not teach young people how to find more reasons to live.Jiang Menglin immediately wrote a stern rebuttal in the newspapers, emphasizing that society cannot be improved by itself, and individuals must improve it.And suicide is to show one's weakness, immoral, not for struggle, and is "a great sin".He clamored that there is only one life, and it is good to be always optimistic. He asked young people not to choose to commit suicide and escape when faced with a dangerous social environment, but to actively "struggle to the extreme and continue to struggle."

Jiang Menglin said: "I have worked in universities for decades, and after many trends, I discovered a rule: There are three factions in a university, one is the principal, the other is the professor, and the other is the student. Among these three factions, if If two factions unite against a third faction, the third faction must fail." Jiang Menglin hated the old-style education since he was a child, but later he was grateful for the old-style education.He said that if it wasn't for the encouragement of famous aphorisms such as "you can be the best if you suffer hardships", "everything is inferior, you can only study high" and other famous aphorisms, he would have gone to Shanghai to do business a long time ago.Therefore, he believes: "Ideals, hopes, and wills can be said to be the most important factors that determine the prosperity of a life. If education cannot inspire a person's ideals, hopes, and wills, and only emphasizes the interests of students, it is a way to sacrifice the fundamentals. Only by Only when the inspiration of ideals is the main factor and the cultivation of interests is supplemented, can interest become an important factor in education.”

In 1928, Jiang Menglin became Minister of Education in Nanjing.At that time, "pheasant universities" selling diplomas flooded major cities.Considering the quality of higher education, Jiang Menglin strictly restricted the existence of private universities, formulated and promulgated the "University Organization Law", stipulating that the university is divided into eight colleges: liberal arts, science, law, education, agriculture, industry, business, and medicine. Those who have more than three colleges can only be called universities, otherwise they are independent colleges.For those unscrupulous private universities, Jiang Menglin also rectified, or banned, or warned with an iron fist.

Jiang Menglin also promulgated a decree of the Ministry of Education, carrying out a series of educational reforms: stipulating that all schools should teach in Mandarin; prohibiting the use of classical Chinese textbooks in primary schools; teaching English or other foreign languages ​​in primary schools; and sending public-funded international students must pass the foreign language test of the sending country ; Conduct strict inspections on missionary schools, and ban them if they do not meet the requirements; Universities no longer enroll preparatory students, and set up affiliated high schools if necessary;

In 1929, at the suggestion of Minister of Education Jiang Menglin, the China Education and Culture Foundation (Cai Yuanpei as chairman and Jiang Menglin as vice chairman) passed a resolution to combine the Beiping Library and the Beihai Library in Beiping to establish the "National Peiping Library" , the predecessor of the National Library of China. In 1930, Zhang Naiyan, the president of Central University (nephew of Zhang Jingjiang, a veteran of the Kuomintang), wrote directly to Chiang Kai-shek because of the student riots, resigning, and left Nanjing without waiting for the approval of the Ministry of Education.Jiang Menglin was extremely annoyed. When interviewed by reporters, he defended Central University students everywhere, and criticized Chiang Kai-shek. He said that he, the Minister of Education, only learned of Zhang Naiyan's resignation from the newspaper, and said that Central University ranked first among all national universities. The principal's fate is of great importance, "it is definitely not something that can be decided by one or two people."

Because of the resignation of Zhang Naiyan, the president of Central University, and the banning of private labor universities, Jiang Menglin offended the Kuomintang veterans Li Shizeng, Wu Zhihui, and Zhang Jingjiang, and was forced to resign.On the eve of Jiang's resignation, Wu Zhihui went to the Ministry of Education, his eyes were shining brightly, he questioned the Central Committee and the Labor School, and filed a lawsuit for the two schools.In Wu's view, the minister is the minister of the court, and he should take care of state affairs more and less about school affairs.Finally, Wu Yi pointed to Jiang Menglin, and said sharply, "You are really a minister." Jiang stood up respectfully and replied, "Sir, sit down. Why did you do that? I'm guilty." Jiang resigned the next day.When Liu Bannong heard about this, he presented Jiang with a seal, and the text said: "There is no such thing as a minister."