About author:Tian Wenjun is a professor at the School of Philosophy of Wuhan University and a doctoral supervisor. He has long been engaged in the teaching and scientific research of the history of Chinese philosophy, especially in the study of Song Ming Science and Modern Neo-Confucianism. His major published works include "Research on Feng Youlan's New Science", "The Case of Feng Youlan", "Biography of Feng Youlan", "History of Chinese Dialectics" and so on.
If Feng Youlan's life in Wuchang was the beginning of his new education, then Feng Youlan's understanding of Chinese cultural traditions began with his life in Chongyang.
Feng Youlan's father,"Deque" (德缺) acted as the government of Chongyang County, Hubei Province, in the thirty-third year of Guangxu (1907).
Chongyang is a small county in the southern Hubei region. However, in old China, ZhiXian was the head of a county, and Feng Taiyi went to Chongyang to take up his post, and the luggage, attachés, and honor guards were all still in place. Feng Youlan, his parents and siblings sat in several large sedan cars, greeted by honor guards and salutes, and entered Chongyang County.
Qing Dynasty County
When he first arrived in Chongyang, Feng Taiyi arranged for Feng Youlan's mother and son to temporarily live in the Chali Bureau. Because Feng Youlan's brother and sister's teaching master failed to accompany the Feng family to Chongyang, after staying in the Chali Bureau, Feng Youlan's mother still temporarily urged him and his younger sister to study.
After the teacher came to Chongyang, Feng Youlan and his younger sister's reading life began to be on the right track. He taught them four courses, including ancient Chinese, arithmetic, writing, and composition. Ancient chinese, writing, and composition can be said to be within the scope of today's primary school students' language classes in terms of content. Therefore, the four homework that Feng Youlan and his younger sister learned are actually language and arithmetic. The content of arithmetic varies from addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to varying degrees. The ancient text is to read the "Ancient Literature Reader" compiled by Wu Rulun. Judging from the content of the articles selected in this reading book, the degree is much higher than that of the language curriculum in primary schools today.
Feng Youlan studied under the guidance of Mr. Feng, and did not have difficulty in explaining the content of the course. In addition to homework, he has a lot of leisure time. Although Feng Taiyi entrusted Feng Youlan's reading to the teaching master, he still had his own constraints on Feng Youlan's extracurricular activities. He did not allow Feng Youlan to hang out in the street market after class, and as for Feng Youlan's specific activities after class, he did not care. This allows Feng Youlan to freely dispose of her spare time and receive other forms of education.
This kind of education, that is, after the end of homework, soak in the father's signing room and read extracurricular books. In Feng Taiyi's signing room, there are many old and new books.
Foreign Affairs Daily
Feng Youlan's favorite read is the "Diplomatic Daily". Because, from the "Diplomatic Daily", you can get the knowledge and information of the international aspect at that time.
In his father's signing room, Feng Youlan also read the charter of the Beijing Normal University hall promulgated by the Qing government. Although he was young and could not fully understand the contents of the charter, the names mentioned in the charter, such as "Jingke", "Shangshumen", "Mao Shimen", and "Tongrumen", remained in Feng Youlan's memory.
His father handled government affairs in the signing room, and Feng Youlan flipped through the books in the signing room; when his father was not in the signing room, Feng Youlan also looked through the things on his desk. In the process of looking at these things, he knew that there was a difference between Zhixian's Feng Lu and "raising honesty"; he also had a certain understanding of Zhixian's daily etiquette and dress rules.
Feng Youlan flipped through old and new books in his father's signing room after class, which was a book with words. Feng Youlan also had a time when he read the Book of Wordless. This is a person observing the architectural pattern and system of Chongyang County. This kind of observation is also a kind of learning. This kind of learning is actually an understanding of China's cultural traditions.
Some of China's cultural traditions are found in the writing of books, some are hidden in people's hearts and emotions, and some are embodied through architecture and utensils.
When Feng Youlan was a child, he was mostly exposed to Confucian classics, and he actually had some understanding of China's cultural traditions. However, Feng Youlan's understanding of China's cultural traditions from reality began after she lived in Chongyang County. From his understanding of the differences between the yazhong hall in Chongyang County and the offices of the six ministries of officials, ceremonies, soldiers, criminals, and workers, he began to have a preliminary understanding of the difference between officials and officials in old China, and realized why county officials were called "Hundred Mile Hou" in ancient times.
This kind of observation and realization in Chongyang County made Feng Youlan personally feel what was the power and "bad rules" of the official government, and what was the supremacy and prominence of imperial power.
Feng Youlan later devoted himself to academic career for a long time, but he was not a simple cultural person.
He has had his own pursuits and ambitions in academics and deeds, and has served as the dean of the School of Letters of Tsinghua University for a long time, showing a strong administrative ability. Feng Youlan's administrative ability is probably related to what he heard and saw in Chongyang County when he was a child.
Feng Taiyi's tenure in Chongyang Zhi County was very short. In the summer of the thirty-fourth year of Qing Guangxu (1908), Feng Tai died of a violent illness in Chongyang Renshou.
This year, Feng Youlan was 13 years old, Feng Jinglan was 10 years old, and Feng Yuanjun was 8 years old.
After Feng Taiyi's death, In order to bury her husband and arrange the study life of Feng Youlan's brothers and sisters, Feng Youlan's mother, Lady Wu, with the help of Feng Taiyi's younger brother Feng Hanyi, led Feng Youlan's brothers and sisters to support Feng Taiyi's coffin and quickly embarked on the way back to their hometown in Tanghe.