Chapter 14 Great Guarantee, Great Care

At the venue of the National People's Congress, I met an old friend who hadn't seen each other for more than 20 years. He told me about the past and said, "Do you remember that time when we went to see you, it was at the former Yenching University in the western suburbs. ...After we visited you, we visited the towers by the lake for a week." Speaking of this, he smiled, "Those buildings were rare in the past, but now they are nothing!" "It's nothing now", this plain sentence, I don't know how much suffering and bitterness, how much hard and tenacious struggle, how much pride and happiness are in it!

Yenching University was established during the period of Beiyang warlords' domination, and all the imperialist countries showed their heads in China, supporting these warlords to fight for years.In the midst of the chaos, the imperialists calmly stretched out their claws, fished in troubled waters, and plundered. Among them, some people put on the cloak of religion and carry out the most vicious and insidious cultural aggression in China.They circled a few places on the starving and impoverished land of China, and used a tiny fraction of the money they extracted from the Chinese people to set up several universities. Yenching University was the bastion of American imperialist cultural aggression established during this period. One of the most "excellent" of them all.It has several beautiful Chinese-style buildings, dotted with lake light and pagoda shadows, forming a "paradise" to avoid chaos.This "Xanadu" has confused many Chinese professors and students for more than twenty years, deepening their absolutely wrong thinking that transcends politics and class, and makes them settle for an American-style life of luxury and pleasure. Became a tool of U.S. imperialist aggression!

Mentioning these things is really painful and ashamed!The tactics of the U.S. imperialists are insidious and vicious, but looking at the graduates of Yenching University and other universities run by U.S. imperialists, there are still many who are living abroad, serving the imperialists with humiliation and have not yet mustered up the courage to return home. It is conceivable that the fact that we are embraced by the motherland. In 1949, when Beijing was liberated, Yenching University finally returned to the embrace of the motherland and became a university for the people.The year before last, it was merged into Peking University and became part of Peking University.

Not long ago, I was full of excitement and visited Peking University.Entering the gate, crossing the small bridge, bypassing the lake, crossing the hill to the south, in the dense shade of trees, there are many new tall buildings, which are the literature and history building, the philosophy building, the biology building, and the chemistry building. The building... is really five steps to the first floor, ten steps to one pavilion, which is almost half more than the buildings of Yenching University in the past 30 years!On the top of the mountains and the waters, there are children of the working people who shuttle back and forth laughing, and there are many young men and women from fraternal countries among them.Thinking back to Yenching University in the past, it only accepted more than 800 students every year. Because of the high cost of accommodation and boarding, most of them were the sons and daughters of bureaucrats, landlords and capitalists; now the citizens of New China have the right to education. The school's students' board and lodging expenses have been provided by the state. This year's Peking University has more than 1,700 new students.In the past, the student dormitories of Yenching University consisted of only four courtyards and six floors; now there are 28 large and small dormitories, and 10 canteens.

This is really the difference between heaven and earth! The above is just a small corner of Peking University. In the past five years, the schools in the northwestern suburbs of Beijing have changed a lot!After the car exited Xizhimen, clusters of tall buildings stood on both sides of the road. As far as I could see, I saw the Central University for Nationalities, Foreign Language School, and Renmin University.Pass through Peking University, pass Tsinghua University, and turn to the straight avenue that runs from east to west. On both sides are several unfinished colleges: School of Aviation, School of Geology, School of Mining, School of Petroleum, etc.On these vast construction sites, workers come and go like weaves. The construction project is not yet over, and thousands of students are already learning.On the unfinished gate, colorful flags are fluttering, and beside the unleveled avenue, there are slogans welcoming new students, such as "Welcome our new comrades-in-arms", "The needs of the country are my volunteers" and so on. Exciting words.I went to the highest floor of a building of the School of Mines (the building is installing electric lights, nailing blackboard chairs and tables), leaning on the railing, I can see all the neatly arranged school buildings in the distance: the Petroleum Institute is dark gray , the College of Iron and Steel Industry is white, the College of Aeronautics is light gray, and the College of Mines is light red; in the vast open space between the buildings, green and dense crops grow.At this time, it was time for after-school exercise. In the squares of various colleges, there were groups of students wearing various sports clothes, cheering and playing games.Looking from a distance from above, it looks like five-color beads, which are constantly jumping and turning!

In the twilight, the quiet and majestic Xishan is looking at these happy young people with a smile.Xishan, she has experienced many vicissitudes.It was only five years ago that one or two thousand young people at the foot of the western mountain were still being deceived, deceived, persecuted, and starved; and in the past five years, our own party and our own government have Completely changed the look of the land under the West Mountain! Article 94 of the Constitution stipulates: Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to education.The state establishes and gradually expands various schools and other cultural and educational institutions to ensure citizens' enjoyment of this right.

The state pays special attention to the physical and intellectual development of young people. These schools were all established before the promulgation of the constitution, and these schools are just a corner of what I have seen and known in the suburbs of Beijing.Considering the vigorous construction of various schools across the country, how can people not be full of trust and joy, and feel grateful for our hundreds of millions of young people! Great "guarantee", great "care", our children are happy! We ourselves are also happy, because we have caught up with this great era.In addition to being grateful, we must also ensure that we are closely united around the party and the government, and contribute all our strength to the physical and intellectual development of young people!September 26, 1954, Beijing.

(This article was originally published in "Beijing Daily" on October 9, 1954, and later included in the collection of essays "After Returning".)