The clouds and mountains are cang, the rivers are swelling, the wind of Mr. Mister, the mountains are high and the waters are long.
——Fan Zhongyan
Zhang Boling (1876-1951), known as Shouchun. In his early years, he studied navigation at the Beiyang Marine Teacher's School. After the Sino-Japanese War, his Beiyang Marine Division was completely destroyed.
After retiring from the Navy, Zhang Boling decided that only by starting from education and cultivating new talents could China survive. Coincidentally, he met Yan Fansun, a noble man in his life, who was a local celebrity, not only had a wide range of family assets, but also had many connections in both political and business circles. He first invited Zhang Boling to teach at yan's family school. Later, a salt merchant named Wang Kuizhang also hired him to teach scientific knowledge to the students of wang's family hall. In this way, Zhang Boling came to play in the Yan and Wang pavilions, and taught people tirelessly.
The defeat of the Sino-Japanese War made Zhang Boling think about how Japan, as a mere land of bullets, became a world power and defeated the great Qing Empire. He decided to take advantage of the summer vacation to go to Japan to investigate, and after returning home, he said with emotion: "After a few days of investigation, I know that the other countries are rich and strong, and the revitalization of education is the main reason." If we want to save China, we must start with education, and if we want to improve education, we must have a formal school organization. ''
With the support of the Yan and Wang families, in 1904, the private Jingye Middle School was officially established, which became the beginning of Zhang Boling's formal devotion to education. In the past few years, as the number of students has increased, the school building has not been enough. At this time, a gentleman named Zheng Juru took the initiative to donate a piece of land of more than ten acres next to the sluice gate in the south of the city for the purpose of running a school. Here, Zhang Boling established Nankai Middle School.
By 1917, Nankai Middle School had thousands of students, and in order to further establish higher education, after returning from an inspection tour of education in the United States, he vigorously threw himself into the preparation of Nankai University: including fundraising, campus planning, hiring teachers, purchasing equipment and other specific matters, all of which were handled by him. In order to raise funds, he did not hesitate to run the school, running between Beijing and Tianjin, raising a large amount of money, but he was reluctant to spend a penny; Zhang Boling knew the importance of talent, as early as the United States study period, he paid great attention to finding outstanding scholars, so many international students chose to teach in Nankai after returning to China; at that time, private universities generally only had two subjects, literature and law, because this could save the cost of running schools. Zhang Boling believes that this cannot cultivate practical talents, so adding two subjects of business and science can lead to practical results. ''
Zhang Boling, who founded Nankai University, did not stop pursuing. In 1923, Nankai Girls' High School was established; in 1928, he established Nankai Primary School; in 1927, he founded the Nankai Economic Research Institute and the Manchurian-Mongolian Research Association; in 1929, the Institute of Applied Chemistry was established. Since then, a complete education system has been formed. For this reason, he was revered as ''Mr. Nankai''.'
Just as he was preparing to train more talents for the country, the occurrence of the North China incident made the situation in Tianjin increasingly tense. He went to Chongqing to investigate and decided to rebuild the middle school in Shapingba.
In July 1937, Tianjin fell into war, Nankai was bombed by aircraft, for a time, smoke and clouds covered the sky, Zhang Boling half of his life's efforts, almost disappeared. The next day, Chiang Kai-shek made an appointment with Zhang Boling, but he said: "Nankai has been burned by the Japanese army." My decades of hard work are over. But as long as the country has a way to fight, I am the first to raise my hand in favor. As long as the state has a way, what is Nankai? After the battle, build another Nankai. ''
After the outbreak of the All-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Nankai University merged with Tsinghua University and Peking University to form the National Southwest United University.
In 1948, after witnessing the dark decay of the Nanjing government, Zhang Boling left the Nanjing Examination Institute on the grounds that she was "weak and needed to recuperate". In February 1951, due to a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, Zhang Boling died of illness in Tianjin.
Zhang Boling's life is full of peach and plum, and the literary scholar Cao Yu, the physicist Wu Dayu, and the medical scientist Wu Jiepingwai are all alumni of Nankai.
But there is another person, although he has never studied in Nankai for a day, but he regards Zhang Boling as a teacher, and he is Zhang Xueliang. In October 1916, Zhang Boling was invited to Shenyang to give a speech, and his first sentence was "China is not dead, my generation is here", which deeply shocked Zhang Xueliang, who was only 16 years old.
After taking over as the young marshal of Fengjun, Zhang Xueliang wanted to ask him to serve as the mayor of Tianjin, but Zhang Bolingzhi was no longer engaged in politics, and refused Zhang Xueliang's kindness. However, in order to expose Japan's ambitions to invade Northeast China, the "Manchu-Mongolian Research Association" was specially established. After that, Zhang Xueliang founded Northeastern University and served as its president, but suffered from the lack of a right-hand man. Zhang Boling recommended his protégé Ning Encheng to be the secretary general, and he also went to Shenyang many times to help formulate a construction plan. After the Xi'an Incident, Song Ziwen and Song Meiling knew that he was a figure who could influence Zhang Xueliang, so they begged him to write a letter to Zhang Xueliang in person. It can be said that the Xi'an affair has become resolved peacefully, including the contribution of Mr. Zhang Boling.