Author/Cai Wu 《Changsha Current Affairs School》
Editor/Liu Jing
The Changsha sun in July is dazzling, not to mention noon. My friend and I stood in front of the former site of the Tianni Lu Changsha Shiwu School at No. 29 Sangui Street, Changsha, waiting for the arrival of Ms. Liu Li, a staff member of the former site of the school that had been agreed upon in advance.
"Hello guys! Long wait! Teacher Liu Li, who is long in stature, full of smiles and full of intellectual charm, opens the door of the old site of the school and leads us into that turbulent and exciting period.
The former site of Changsha Shiwu School is now the residence of Mr. Chen Yunzhang, the former honorary curator of the Hunan Provincial Museum of Culture and History, located at the entrance of Sangui Street, which is not deep in Zhongshan West Road, with a narrow façade. In honor of his father, the famous scholar Chen Tianni, Chen Yunzhang named the house "Tianni Lu". Chen House covers an area of one acre, with a construction area of 400 square meters, built in 1946. This area is part of the original Shiwu School, which is about one-eighth of the area of the original Shiwu School.
Entering the door, the scenery in front of you suddenly opens up, a tall camphor tree is erected in the courtyard, and the shade of the tree is suddenly cool, giving people a deep sense of history that the predecessors planted the trees and the people who planted the trees. On the left wall is embedded a plaque of "Introduction to the Former Site of the Shiwu Academy", and there is another Seven Sages Poetry Gallery, on the right is the "Shiwu Xuetang Monument" covered with green glazed tiles, and the handwritten "Shiwu Xuetang Old Site" written by Liang Qichao when he returned to Xiangxiang in 1922 to visit the old site of the Xuetang is embedded in it, and the inscriptions of Li Xiaoyan, a student of the Shiwu Academy, who was Liang Qichao's secretary and Li Shuyi's father, are close behind them, and Li Guansong's trek and Chen Yunzhang's supplementary notes are also arranged in turn, and the four stele stones are lined up in a row.
In the winter of 1896, at the suggestion of Jiang Dejun, a Xiangxiang native who had served as the prefect of Long'an in Sichuan, Wang Xianqian, then the head of Yuelu Academy, and Jinshi, Shu Jishi of Hanlin Academy, and Xiong Xiling, the general office of the Two Lakes Camp Office, were submitted to Chen Baozhen, the governor of Hunan Province, to "reconsider the opening of the academy." Chen Baozhen, who had a deep idea of restoration, was "surprised" and personally named it the "School of Current Affairs" and identified it as an official school, allocating 16,000 taels of silver to the Qing court and Xiang Province every year.
Enrollment began in September 1897 and officially opened on November 29, 1897. On the occasion of the enrollment of the Shiwu Academy, in order to expand its influence and clarify the significance, in September 1897, the "Shiwu Xuetang Public Revelation" was published in the "Zhixin Bao". Gong Qi shouted, "If I xiang changes, then my China changes; if I xiangli, then China exists." With the breath of availability, open the wisdom of the unopened. He emphasized that "the establishment of wide schools is a strategy for self-improvement." This public notice was drafted by Liang Qichao, and the whole text is impassioned and admirable.
At the beginning of the school year, Chen Baozhen appointed Xiong Xiling as the Prime Minister of the Shiwu Academy (also known as the Ti ti, that is, the principal), presiding over all administrative affairs; and appointed Tan Sitong as the director of the school, in charge of academic affairs.
Of course, the most important thing in an academy is the teacher, and the teacher phalanx of the Shiwu Academy at that time can be called the "Professor Heavenly Regiment". Liang Qichao served as the chief teacher of Chinese, and Li Weige served as the chief teacher of Spanish. Li Weige studied in the United Kingdom, and then assisted Sheng Xuanhuai in handling foreign affairs, and then specialized in operating Hanyang Iron Works and Hanyeping Coal and Iron Ore Company, one of the pioneers of China's steel industry. Chinese divided into Han Wenju, Ye Juemai, Ou Yujia, and Tang Caichang; the Western teachings were Wang Shi and Xu Yingyuan; the mathematics teaching Xu Kuiyuan; the public opinion was divided into Zou Daijun; and the gymnastics was divided into Yang Fuyan. These sub-teachings were also leaders of the moment, such as Zou Daijun, Hunan Xinhuaren (present-day Luohong, Hunan), the advocate and founder of modern Chinese cartography, the founder of chinese and foreign color map copperplate printing, the teacher of the Guangxu and Xuantong emperors, and later the chief teacher of geography at Beijing Normal University.
On November 29, 1897, the Shiwu Academy held a grand opening ceremony, and Tan Sitong and Xiong Xiling wrote a congratulatory message. Tan Si tonglian said: "Heroes of the Lake and Sea, Li Wei situation; Xun Yuan Xiang disciples, praise ZTE." Xiong Xiling said: "The three generations of the will rules are heavy in order; the strange changes in Kyushu say mountains and rivers." "There are seven courses in the School of Current Affairs, four of which are related to Western studies, and one of the mathematics courses includes "Geometry Origin", "Algebra Problem", "Traceability of Micro-Products", "Chemical Identification" and so on. The school also purchased the first astronomical telescope in Hunan Province and organized students to do physics and chemistry experiments. Students are required to read newspapers every day, and there are "dean lectures" once every five days and "classmates will talk" on several days a month, and famous teachers from all over the country are hired to give speeches at school, opening up a new teaching model that is completely different from the old style of education.
Due to the "Wenxi Fire" of 1938, the building of the Shiwu Academy has disappeared. Regarding its appearance and internal layout, historical documents lack records, and no pictures have been found so far, only that this is a three-entry courtyard covering an area of more than 3,000 square meters.
However, at that time, the recruitment process of the Shiwu Academy was recorded in great detail.
The first examination was on September 24, 1897, and seven days before the examination, Chen Baozhen published the "Recruitment Instructions for the Current Affairs School" in the "Xiangxue New Daily" and posted it in the streets and alleys of the provincial city. Coinciding with the Qing court's three-year "Qiu Min" township examination, the reference students brought this news to Sanxiang and Sishui, attracting more than 4,000 candidates to apply. The first recruitment examination was repeated and then tested, and 40 students were admitted, which is really one of the best in a hundred. The School of Contemporary Affairs was discontinued after the 1898 Coup d'état, and in less than a year of existence, it recruited five times, admitting a total of 264 students, and because there were students who were repeatedly admitted in the Middle and Western classes, the actual number of students admitted was 193. Judging from the examination questions "On the Most Harmful Things in the Study of Huang Laozhi", "On Mencius's Evil Wishes", "On the Benefits of the Southern Society", "The Theory of the Eternal Death of the Invincible Foreign Patient", and "After the Han Guangwu Emperor Qia Tianxia Also Practiced Judo", it is all a reflection on traditional thinking and a reflection on the problems of the current era.
Time was slow, one noon, and the sun only moved from my left foot to my right foot, but history has gone through here for more than 120 years.
On the right side of the entrance door of "Tianni Lu" is the "Exhibition Hall of the Former Site of the Shiwu School", which displays the history of the Shiwu Academy and the deeds of outstanding teachers and students. The life of Cai Yi, one of the first students, need not be repeated. Tang Caichang, who organized an uprising of 100,000 self-reliant troops in 1900, was killed by the Qing court, according to incomplete statistics, there were more than 20 students of the former Shiwu Academy who participated in the uprising of the self-reliance army at that time, among which Lin Gui (deputy commander of the self-reliance army), Cai Zhonghao, Tian Bangxuan, Li Binghuan, and Tang Caizhong were arrested and sacrificed. In 1919, the young Mao Zedong commented: "There are schools in Hunan, and the original Shiwu School in the spring of Penghu should be promoted." The times have a short life span, but they have cultivated a number of brave and promising young people. "Tang Cai often waited for the teachers and students of the Shiwu Academy to stand at the head of the tide of the times, from reform to revolution, becoming the precursor of the later Xinhai Revolution and changing the direction of China. Fan Yuanlian, a native of Xiangyin, recently broadcast the popular TV series "The Age of Awakening" in which he was the chief education officer of the Republic of China, holding a letter of appointment and asking Cai Yuanpei to be the president of Peking University. He served as the president of three famous universities, Tsinghua Xuetang (now Tsinghua University), Beijing Higher Normal School, and Beijing Normal University, and served as the chief education officer of the Republic of China government four times. Cao Dianqiu, successively secretary of the Ministry of Education, the State Council and director of Hubei Paper Mill, became the president of the Hunan Yuqun Society in 1915, and co-founded Xiangya Hospital and Medical College with the Yale-China Association in 1917. These students are only a microcosm of the students of the School of Contemporary Affairs, and a microcosm of the times.
The exhibition hall also introduced a little-known thing that best reflected the "knowledge of current affairs" of the Shiwu Academy, that is, during the preparation of the Shiwu Academy, Tan Sitong, Xiong Xiling, Jiang Dejun, and others jointly wrote to Inspector Chen Baozhen, strongly demanding that the imperial court bring the Guangdong-Han Railway that was not originally planned to pass through Hunan into Xiangzhou, and proposed specific measures such as Xiangsheng to collect shares and build roads on their own, and finally, this proposal was approved by the Qing court. The Guangdong-Hankou Railway is 1,092 kilometers, and more than 500 kilometers in Hunan, until it was completed in 1936. This had a very far-reaching impact on the social and economic development of Hunan in the future. This incident fully demonstrated the excellent insight and pragmatic spirit of Hunan people and Shiwu Xuetang people.
The afternoon sun was hot, but the blood of this group was hotter than the sun. Standing here, everyone is a passer-by of time and history, but the people who were once here have created time and history. The sun shines on this courtyard of the Republic of China period, and I look down to look for the footprints left by the giants of those times, which seem to be traceless, but the footprints they have left behind have indeed been imprinted on the land of China, and time cannot be erased!
(This article is from Huasheng Observation magazine)
About the author: Cai Wu, a monkey, but fat; Capricorn, but impatient; reading, writing, painting, traveling, all without love, although none of them are proficient, but they are tireless.
Editors/Liu Jing, Lü Lu