Walking into the Campus of Zhongshan North Road of East China Normal University, the school motto monument standing in front of the wide lawn square is engraved with eight big characters of "Seeking Truth and Creating for The Teacher", and the huge stele is spread horizontally, as if to convey the spirit of the school motto to every place on the campus. This simple and unpretentious eight-character school motto is becoming a spiritual force that encourages East China Normal University to make unremitting efforts to realize the Chinese dream.
Meng Xiancheng, the first president of East China Normal University, put forward the ideal of running the school: "the creation of wisdom, the fusion of character, and the development of nationality and society". The eight-character school motto starts from the personality of the Normal University and expresses such an ideal in a condensed way. This is mainly manifested in two aspects: first, in terms of personality, "being a teacher", a teacher is a model of a teacher, and this is first of all a model of personality, "the creation of wisdom, the fusion of character, the development of the nation and society" is based on this; the second is in the "realistic creation" in learning, learning from the high school as a teacher, upholding the truth-seeking creation in order to climb the peak of knowledge, "the creation of wisdom, the fusion of character, the development of the nation and society" is precisely in this way. Therefore, the motto of the Eight Characters School concisely reflects President Meng's ideal of running a school, and vividly shows the style of running a school and the way of governance of East China Normal University.
The school motto is not only connected with the ideal of running a school, but also with the development of society, it is constantly given a new connotation of the times. East China Normal University is mainly based on Guanghua University and Daxia University. Founded in the 1920s, the names of these two universities imply the significance of everbright China, that is, the revitalization of the Chinese nation.
"For the teacher" comes from the Northern Qi Book of Wang Xin's biography: "Yang Yan valued his virtue and thought that he was a teacher of man". It can be seen that the role of being a teacher is to put morality first; and advocating virtue and benevolence is the fundamental orientation of the core values of socialism, so as a school motto, the educational concept of cultivating people with virtue embodies the core values of socialism. "Realistic creation" is a remarkable character of the university to serve the society, which embodies the "dedication" spirit of dedication and loyalty to the cause in the core values of socialism. Not only that, but it also embodies the responsibility of "the world rises and falls, and the pirate has the responsibility" required by the core values of socialism.
Professor Chen Weiping of the Department of Philosophy of East China Normal University