Chapter 41 scholarship

The three generations of the Liu family passed on the scriptures. Liu Shipei's great-grandfather Liu Wenqi, grandfather Liu Yusong, and uncle Liu Shouzeng were all included in the "Manuscripts of Qing History: Biography of Scholars" for their work on "Zuo Zhuan".Liu Shipei's father, Liu Gui, was once a member of the Guangxujian Juren, and wrote "Chunqiu Zuozhuan Calendar", "Shangshu Licao Supplementary Performance", "Baoweng Jushi Collection" and so on.His mother, Li Ruyun, is the second daughter of Li Zuwang, a scholar in Jiangdu, who is proficient in classics and history.Due to his family background, Liu Shipei started studying "Book of Changes" at the age of 8, and had finished reading "Four Books" and "Five Classics" at the age of 12.

In 1898, when his father Liu Guizeng died of illness, Liu Shipei was taught Erya and Shuowen by his mother Li Ruying, and learned from his cousin Liu Shicang.Liu Shipei was intelligent and eager to learn, read a lot of books, dabbled in all kinds of classics, Taoism, and western philosophy. In 1901, he was admitted as a scholar. In 1902, he participated in the Jiangnan provincial examination and passed the examination. Liu Shipei is the descendant of a family of classics and history, and his family has a sea of ​​books.At the age of seventeen, Liu Shipei finished reading all the books in his family, and then discussed history and classics, and wrote books.

Liu Shipei lost his father in his early years, and his grandmother was afraid that he would suffer from going out, so he was confined at home, so although he was famous, the world didn't know who Liu Shipei was.Liu Shipei was wanted by the government because he failed the imperial examination and insulted the Qing court. Hearing that Chen Duxiu, Zhang Shizhao and others were running the "Su Bao" in Shanghai, he came to defect.During that day's spare time, Chen Duxiu went to chat with Zhang Shizhao's apartment, when suddenly a dirty and unkempt young man knocked on the door and said to them, "My name is Liu Shipei, and I escaped from my home in Yangzhou." Based on the knowledge in "Zuo Zhuan", he believed that this young man was Liu Shipei.

Zhang Taiyan once commented on Liu Shipei's way of studying: "Ordinary people don't read books, but Uncle Shen reads too much, memorizes too much, but has little understanding. Sincerely wants to write books, it is better not to read books for three or two years, and write after forgetting less. The common people can increase their comprehension power." During the three years of teaching at Peking University, Liu Shipei taught courses on "Chinese Literature" and "History of Literature" and published "Lecture Notes on the History of Ancient Chinese Literature".The publication of this book enabled the "Wenxuan" faction to win in the dispute of literary schools, and became a model for later generations in the teaching and research of literary history.

Liu Shipei's family has passed down scriptures for several generations. Liu Shipei inherited the tradition of family studies and studied "Zuo Zhuan". Chunqiu Zuo's Biography of Time, Moon, Sun and Ancient Cases", "Duzuo Notes" and other works.At the same time, he also studied "Zhou Li", and wrote "Zhou Li Ancient Commentary Collection", "Study on the Old Theory of the Book of Rites", "Yi Li Kao", "Examples of Ancient Books' Questions and Supplements", "Thesis Notes" and other works. All have high academic status.

While inheriting the family studies of "Zuo Shi", Liu Shipei used modern Western social science research methods and achievements to study Chinese traditional culture and opened up a new realm of traditional culture research.He used the theory of evolution to study ancient social life, and wrote works such as "On the Relationship between Primary Schools and Sociology", "Chinese Studies", "Primary School Post Micro Supplements", etc., which are of groundbreaking significance. During Liu Shipei's more than 30 years of life, he has written quite a lot, including 22 on Qunjing and small scholars, 13 on academics and diction, and 24 on collations and interpretations of Qunshu.After Liu Shipei's death, Qian Xuantong and others edited Liu's articles into "Mr. Liu Shenshu's Suicide Note".

At the end of 1917, Peking University established research institutes for the three disciplines of literature, science, and law, and the students who entered the research institutes became researchers. Liu Shipei also served as the instructor of the Chinese Department of the Institute of Liberal Arts (similar to the current graduate tutor).At the beginning, the research subjects he directed were two research directions of "literary history" and "literary history", and one hour was scheduled on the Thursday of the second and fourth week of each month, which was divided into "literary history" and "literary history" respectively. Discussions will be conducted by researchers in each research direction.Later, the seminar dates were slightly adjusted, but they were still guided once a month.From the 1918 academic year, the research subjects under the guidance of Liu Shipei were adjusted to four directions: "Classics", "Historical Biography", "History of Medieval Literature", and "Zhuzi".Among all the teachers of the Chinese School, he taught the most subjects, followed by Huang Kan, who taught three subjects, and the rest, such as Zhu Xizu, Qian Xuantong, Wu Mei, Zhou Zuoren, etc., only took charge of one subject.This work of Peking University has laid a good foundation for compiling and perfecting Chinese political history and special history.However, when the May 4th Movement occurred and Cai Yuanpei left Beijing, Xu Shuzheng took the opportunity to propose to the State Council of the Beiyang Government that the National History Compilation Department of Peking University should be taken back by the government, directly under the State Council, and renamed the Museum of National History. This work of Peking University was forced to stop.

In 1919, Peking University published "History of Chinese Medieval Literature". This book was compiled by Liu Shipei when he was teaching in the Department of Chinese Literature at Peking University. After its publication, it was very popular with students and had a great response. In "History of Chinese Medieval Literature", Liu Shipei took medieval literature as an independent research object for the first time.This book expounds the general trend of literary development and the evolution history of literary styles from the aspects of politics, thought, customs and fashion.The biggest feature of this book is its extensive collection and extensive references. The extensive and precise citations can be regarded as a model of literary history works, and Liu Shipei's familiarity with historical records is also impressive.This book is mainly based on citing materials, supplemented by expressing opinions. In terms of writing methods, historical materials are listed first, and Liu's personal views are occasionally mixed in, and then relevant articles are selected to confirm and echo each other.

Liu Shipei is one of the pioneers of modern research on Wei-Jin metaphysics. As early as 1905, Liu Shipei made a comprehensive discussion on Wei-Jin metaphysics in his book "Guoxue Fawei".The Wei-Jin period was an era neglected by the academic circles. In 1902, Liang Qichao said in "On the General Trend of Changes in Chinese Academic Thought" that the Wei-Jin period was "the era of the most declining academic thought in China for thousands of years".However, Liu Shipei believes that during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, "it is different from the scholars who formed a family of their own in the Zhou Dynasty", and the degree of academic contention and innovation is no less than that of the Zhou Dynasty scholars; ", this period "cannot be called the era of non-philosophical prosperity", which fully affirmed the metaphysics of the Wei and Jin Dynasties.

During Liu Shipei's stay in Japan, he organized manpower to compile the "Communist Manifesto", and he also wrote a large number of articles introducing the theory of Marxism.Among all the translations of the "Communist Manifesto", Liu Shipei's level is recognized by many modern history experts as the highest.Liu Shipei's research and dissemination of Marxist theory had a great influence on the students studying in Japan at that time.It was under his influence that Li Dazhao, who was studying political science at Waseda University at that time, came into contact with the theory of Marxism, and finally became a pioneer in spreading Marxism and the founder of the Communist Party of China.

Liu Shipei regretted participating in political affairs in his early years. Before his death, he said to Huang Kan: "I should study learning and not politics in my life. It is only because of a mistake in my early years that I missed my ancestors' morality. Now it is too late to regret." In the winter of 1936, Chen Zhongfan said in the postscript of Liu Shipei's "Ancient Annotations of Zhou Li" that in the autumn of 1919, before his death, Liu Shipei talked about his life and knowledge at his home in Peiping. At that time, he said with deep emotion: "Yu Pingsheng No worries about hundreds of volumes of narration; Traveled to Shanghai in the late Qing Dynasty to write articles for the "Guo Quintessence Journal", which was straightforward and unsophisticated; since the Yuan Dynasty, he went to Chengdu in the west, and went to Beiping in the north, where he taught Chinese studies and edited lectures In addition, the essence of energy is actually three "Li"; it not only extensively collects the theories of the scriptures of the Han and Han Dynasties, but also compiles four volumes of "A Textual Research on the Old Theory of the Book of Rites", and also refers to the ancient "Zhou Li" said in the "Five Classics of Different Friendship", The ancient "Zuoshi Chunqiu" mentioned the annotations of Xianzheng and Du Zichun, which is the forty volumes of "Zhouli Ancient Annotation Collection", which can be called a work of confidence. Those who have theories and decrees in the world are the ones who have given them a lot of criticism." The term "Guoxue" originated in the late Qing Dynasty. In the autumn of 1902, Liang Qichao wrote to Huang Zunxian, proposing to establish the "Guo Xue Journal" for the purpose of "preserving the quintessence of the country" and first mentioned the name "Guo Xue". . On February 23, 1905, Zhang Taiyan, Liu Shipei, Deng Shi, etc. founded the "Journal of Guoxue", and published a word cloud: "Publish newspapers and use them to preserve Chinese studies. A series is published every month, and Yan is called Guoxue". So far, the term "Guoxue" has been officially used Named in newspapers.