Chapter 100 position

After the rise of vernacular Chinese, by the 1940s, people no longer studied the Four Books and Five Classics.The great Confucian Ma Yifu felt very melancholy, and sighed: "It is hard work to learn the popular language every day, so I feel like living in a barbarian in the motherland." Ma Yifu is quite prejudiced against the new school education. He believes that "schools today are not as good as academies in the past. Teachers teach for their livelihoods, and students learn for their careers. Schools are like businesses, where lessons are taught on a regular basis and the bell rings."

Ma Yifu insisted on respecting Confucian classics and opposing the abolition of the Six Classics in modern schools.As early as 1912, he opposed Cai Yuanpei's idea of ​​abolishing the Six Classics, and urged schools to resume reading classics.After the success of the Revolution of 1911, Cai Yuanpei was appointed by Sun Yat-sen as the Director of Education. Cai Yuanpei and Ma Yifu were good friends and admired Ma Yifu's academics and reputation, so he appointed Ma Yifu as the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Education to assist in the affairs of the Ministry.Ma Yifu accepted the appointment out of friendship.When he arrived in Nanjing, he learned that Cai wanted to abolish the Six Classics, and had announced the "Primary School Order" to abolish the reading of classics; the "Secondary School Order" to abolish "reading and lectures"; the "University Order" and the "Specialized School Order" He was very dissatisfied with the abolition of "economics" and asked Cai to withdraw the ministry order. "Differences can't be taken for granted", because the two disagreed, so Ma Yifu resigned from the job less than three weeks after arriving at the job.He said to Cai Yuanpei, "I don't know how to be an official, but only study. Why don't you let me go back to West Lake."

Afterwards, Ma Yifu wrote when reminiscing about this incident: "The Nanjing Provisional Government has gained popularity and educated the people with Cai Zi. Jun Cai invited Yu to be the secretary-general, and Yu Zhi abolished the reading of scriptures. The ministry order for male and female students has been issued and cannot be withdrawn. There is no language left, and I persuaded the establishment of a Confucian academy to cultivate the foundation of the country... Cai Junhe and Han Wu said, but it was too early, so I put it on hold, and the rest also went."