Chapter 45 The back is getting farther away, and Leighton Stuart is still hovering: Farewell?Stuart

Leighton Stuart (1876-1962) American, Christian missionary, educator, diplomat.He used to be the President and Chancellor of Yenching University, and the US Ambassador to China. This is a strange foreigner: he is very famous in China, but unknown in his own country.Ever since the Great Leader was "handpicked," his name has become synonymous with notoriety. "He is a symbol of the complete failure of the US aggressive policy." Mao Zedong concluded. On August 2, 1949, the 73-year-old tall and thin old man left China sadly. On August 18, Xinhua News Agency broadcast Mao Zedong's famous essay "Farewell, Leighton Stuart", which was included in middle school Chinese textbooks.Since then, "Leighton Stuart" has become a symbol of failure and an object of ridicule by generations of Chinese youth.

However, historian Lin Mengxi told us: "In the entire 20th century, there is probably no American who has been involved in China's politics, culture, and education for a long time and comprehensively like Dr. Leighton Stuart, and has had an immeasurable impact." Leighton Stuart once said that he was "more a Chinese than an American".In terms of blood, he is a pure American, his father was the first batch of missionaries from the United States to China, and his mother is also American.But he was born in Hangzhou, and he spoke Hangzhou dialect from the novel. When he was 11 years old, he went back to Virginia, the United States to go to school. The children in the neighborhood laughed at him as a "local weirdo" who couldn't speak English. In 1904, the young Leighton Stuart, like his father, returned to Hangzhou with his new wife and began to engage in missionary work.

After the "September 18th" Incident, Leighton Stuart personally led hundreds of Yan masters and students to march on the streets, shouting "Down with Japanese imperialism" at the front of the team. In 1934, when Leighton Stuart went to the United States, he suddenly received an urgent call from Yanda University asking him to return to school quickly: it turned out that Beijing students organized a petition group to go to Nanjing in order to oppose the government's policy of non-resistance to Japan, and Yanda University students announced a strike.Most of the foreign professors in the school opposed the student strike, while the students who did not go south and the Chinese professors firmly refused to allow the class to start, and the two sides were in serious conflict.After Leighton Stuart hurried back, he immediately held a school meeting.Some people thought that, as the president of the school, he would never support the strike, but Leighton Stuart said: "When I disembarked in Shanghai, I first asked the person who came to pick me up, did the students from Yanjing come to Nanjing to petition? I heard The answer I received: 'Yes', so I can rest assured. If the Yanjing students did not participate in the petition this time, it means that my education has completely failed over the years!"

During the Anti-Japanese War, he was imprisoned for nearly 4 years because he refused to cooperate with the Japanese army. In 1946, Stuart became the US ambassador to China.At that time, someone once commented on him: "A politician and a scholar, a cunning opponent and a warm friend." Bing Xin, who was once a Yankee university student and then a teacher of Yanda University, praised her principal in this way: "There are always tens of thousands of people in this group. In the four major events of illness and death, he is indispensable. He is the one who baptizes the baby, he is the one who witnesses the marriage, and the one who presides over the funeral. You add a child, get sick, have a birthday, and die Relatives, he sent the first short letter, the first pot of flowers, the first welcome smile, and the first sincere words of condolence, all from him.”

According to historical data disclosed in recent years, on the eve of leaving China, Leighton Stuart had secretly contacted high-level CCP leaders, and even planned to go to Beijing to discuss the recognition of the new China by the US government, but was eventually recalled and failed to make the trip. Regardless of Leighton Stuart's political orientation at the time, his efforts to avoid completely isolating China from the United States and even the West at that historical turning point were proved by later history to be a more rational choice. Mao Zedong satirized Leighton Stuart "In short, no one paid attention to him, which made him 'stand alone, like a shadow'".I don’t know if it’s a “full word”: After returning to the United States, Leighton Stuart was lonely and desolate in his later years. He was issued a “gag order” by the State Council and harassed by “McCarthyists”. He suffered from cerebral thrombosis and eventually became hemiplegia and aphasia .

One of his last wishes was to send his ashes back to China for burial on the campus of Yenching University.But this wish failed to come true. On the afternoon of January 3, 2005, the reporter saw a jackdaw passing by the Linhu Pavilion by the Weiming Lake.That was the place where Principal Situ officiated the wedding ceremony for the young teacher Bing Xin and Wu Wenzao.