Chapter 29 The head of a school is now in Zhou Yichun: the forgotten old principal of Tsinghua University

Zhou Yichun (1883-1958), courtesy name Jimei, was born in Xiuning, Anhui. From 1913 to 1918, he served as the principal of Tsinghua School.Later, he successively served as the acting president of Yenching University, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Industry of the National Government, the minister of agriculture and forestry, and the minister of health. On the evening of June 10, 2004, I walked into the old Tsinghua Garden. On the slope lawn, a new boulder donated by alumni was erected, engraved with the motto of Tsinghua University: "Self-improvement, virtue and virtue". Not far away, the dome of the auditorium is bathed in the twilight, and the door of the Science Museum has been locked; passing the auditorium, there are students coming and going in and out of the old library from time to time; Several white-haired old men and young men are playing basketball.

I came to the I-shaped hall and found an acquaintance.He is a graduate of Tsinghua University and works in the personnel department of the school.I asked him, do you know Zhou Yichun?He shook his head. "But if you want to know, I can go into the internal personnel database and look it up for you." In fact, he may not be able to find out.More than 80 years have passed since Zhou Yichun appeared in the Tsinghua Garden every day; moreover, there is no need to check.Because as the old principal of Tsinghua School, Zhou Yichun left a lot to Tsinghua——During his tenure, he established the famous school motto, and personally planned and supervised the construction of Tsinghua’s early "four buildings": the auditorium, the science Halls, libraries, gymnasiums.

In today's Tsinghua University, everyone sees "Zhou Yichun" every day and everywhere, but not many people have heard of this name.Not only the cadre of the personnel department, but on the Tsinghua campus, if you ask a few students or teachers casually, most of them don't know who Zhou Yichun is.Only one girl from the School of Journalism thought for a while and said, "I know he is the old principal of Tsinghua University, but I don't know much about the others." A staff member of the Tsinghua Alumni Association who helped me contact and interview Zhou Yichun's descendants told me embarrassedly: "Actually, I just got to know President Zhou after I was transferred to the Alumni Association not long ago."

But for a long time, Tsinghua University refused to forget President Zhou: at the beginning of 1918, on the day he resigned and left school, the whole school gathered, and the students dressed in military uniforms raised their guns to salute him.Professor Wen Yuanning, who was 16 years younger than him, later recalled: "The day he resigned was a sad day for the staff under his leadership, his students and himself." Wen Yuanning said: "At school, people would avoid him and avoid him; now, he has become the object of people's search. He often exudes a kind of warmth that is not common among the closest friends. "

The older generation of Tsinghua people, including Mei Yiqi, the most famous president of Tsinghua University, has always been called the "old president". In the early 1930s, Tsinghua University had a "Principal Trend", and several unpopular principals were expelled from the school by the professors' and students' unions.At this time, the teachers and students thought of their old principal again, so they sent representatives to his home to "persuade him". Let go. During Zhou Yichun's tenure, Tsinghua School was only a preparatory school for studying in the United States.However, according to the research of Huang Yanfu, an expert on the history of Tsinghua University, it was he who first put forward the complete plan for gradually transitioning Tsinghua University into a complete and independent university in 1916.

Zhou Yichun was known for his strictness at Tsinghua School.He once implemented the famous "compulsive exercise": every day from 4 pm to 5 pm is the exercise time. During that hour, the library, classrooms, and dormitories are all locked, and students must go to the outdoor playground or gymnasium to exercise.Therefore, he has always been regarded as the pioneer of Tsinghua's sports tradition. "He is very strict, which is uncompromising; but he is very kind, that is to say, you feel that he is very warm, and he is for your own good. Therefore, all his students I came into contact with later have a good impression of him. Yes." His son, Mr. Zhou Huakang, a well-known doctor from Union Medical College Hospital, described his father in this way.

President Zhou graduated from Shanghai St. John's University in his early years, and then went to the United States to study, and studied at Yale University and the University of Wisconsin.Just when he left Tsinghua, his alma mater, Shanghai St. John's University awarded him an honorary doctorate, so his contemporaries used to call him Dr. Tsur (Dr. Zhou). In 1950, after Dr. Zhou returned to the mainland from Hong Kong, he lived with his son Zhou Huakang's family.It was a two-story building on Foreign Affairs Street, and he lived upstairs.In the era of frequent sports, Zhou Huakang recalled that he had very few opportunities to communicate with his father, and he never even heard his father mention Tsinghua University, which is most cherished by his father.In the eyes of Zhou Huakang's daughter Zhou Lin, grandpa is "very quiet, like an old Chinese pedant, who doesn't look like the Westernized style of the year. He doesn't go out all day, and only does two things: look through a lot of thread Books, and calligraphy.”