Cai Yuanpei, when he is mentioned, many people will associate him with the president of Peking University. However, Cai Yuanpei lived for 72 years (1868-1940), spanning almost the entire modern era, and we only know a part about him. Cai Yuanpei is actually the next complex person in that complicated era.
First Revolution
Cai Yuanpei, Zi Heqing, Xiao Min, a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang. Cai Yuanpei was born into a family of scholars, so he entered a private school to receive a traditional education at the age of 4. Cai Yuanpei was a jinshi at the age of 25, and at this age, jinshi was considered to be young. After that, he served as an official in the Qing government for several years, and at the age of 27, he was appointed as a reviser of the Hanlin Academy. In the same year (1894), the Sino-Japanese War broke out.
Cai Yuanpei saw the corruption and incompetence of the Qing court from the qing government's disastrous defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, and began to contact Western studies to seek a way to save the country, and gradually germinated a sense of revolution. In 1904, Cai Yuanpei formed a revolutionary group in Shanghai, the Xingfu Association, and the following year was incorporated into the League, and Cai Yuanpei himself was appointed by Sun Yat-sen as the head of the Shanghai branch.
I have to say that Cai Yuanpei's revolutionary will is very strong. In 1905, he founded the Patriotic Girls' School in Shanghai, specializing in explosives and poisons for assassination purposes. Therefore, we should not form a stereotype because of Cai Yuanpei's gentle and elegant scholarly image in film and television dramas, such a "weak scholar" has done bomb assassination.
Cai Yuanpei in his youth
President of Peking University
After the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of China, he was appointed AssentAry General of Education, and since then he has been committed to promoting the reform and development of education in China. In 1916, Cai Yuanpei was officially appointed president of Peking University, beginning the most important chapter of his life.
Before Cai Yuanpei took office, Peking University was very corrupt, and it did not look like a higher education institution at all, and students only regarded it as a necessary place to serve as an official. After Cai Gong took office, he adopted the policy of "freedom of thought and inclusiveness" to promote academic freedom, and absorbed a large number of "new school" figures to teach at Peking University. Including Li Dazhao, Hu Shi, Qian Xuan, and the same, they also hired Chen Duxiu as the chief of liberal arts in 1917. At the same time, Liu Shipei, Gu Hongming and other "old school" big names were also invited to teach at Peking University.
The Red Chamber of Peking University
In addition, Cai Yuanpei also advocated civilian education. He relaxed the admission restrictions at Peking University, requiring only grades to determine students' admission qualifications, rather than family origin and social status. This move dealt a severe blow to the bureaucracy in Peking University and made it possible for civilians to enter Peking University.
Under such a series of measures, Peking University has changed its previous decline, and the academic atmosphere is very strong. It is precisely with such a premise that Peking University can become an important position in the May Fourth Movement in 1919, and the students of Peking University can become the vanguard of this anti-imperialist and anti-feudal movement. It is undeniable that Cai Yuanpei has made outstanding contributions to the modernization of Chinese education, but as mentioned at the beginning, he is a complex person in a complex era, and we must also understand the other side of him.
Handmaiden
This had to involve the "412" counter-revolutionary incident of 1927. Just as the Northern Expedition and the Great Revolution were vigorous, the right wing of the Kuomintang headed by Chiang Kai-shek rebelled against the revolution, and they wantonly hunted down communists and Leftists of the Kuomintang, and the excellent situation of the revolution was destroyed and fell into a downturn.
"April 12" counter-revolution
Cai Yuanpei was a staunch supporter and secret plotter of this "412" counter-revolutionary incident. On March 28, 1927, Cai Yuanpei was the chairman, and wu zhihui and Zhang Jingjiang, the right wing of the Kuomintang, held a secret meeting in Shanghai and made a resolution to "clean up the party". Cai Yuanpei showed a positive attitude in the activities of the Qing Party, and often discussed with Chiang Kai-shek matters related to the Qing Party.
Liu Ya, a student who had always respected him, was very shocked by Cai Yuanpei's attitude toward the Qing Party, "Mr. Cai lived a peaceful and generous life, and he made people feel like sitting in the spring breeze, but in the first half of the sixteenth year of the Republic of China, he moved some anger and participated in the 'Qing Party' movement. A wanted list published in the name of the Central Control Commission is truly a panacea, and even I am greatly affected by it. ”
Things got worse and worse, the massacres became bloodier, the heads rolled down, and the number of Communists plummeted. Cai Yuanpei sided with Chiang Kai-shek throughout the counterrevolutionary movement, but although he advocated anti-communism, he opposed random hunting and killing, and attached importance to the rule of law. However, the subsequent developments were not within his control. So he finally saw Chiang Kai-shek's face and parted ways with him.
Anti-Chiang Kai-shek anti-Japanese
After the outbreak of the "918" incident in 1931, Cai Yuanpei called on the state to rise up to resist Japan, and the following year, together with Song Qingling and Lu Xun, he organized the Chinese Civil Rights Protection Alliance to express his anti-Japanese attitude with practical actions. He also opposed Chiang Kai-shek's reactionary rule and rescued a large number of patriots and revolutionaries. In 1940, Mr. Cai Yuanpei died in Hong Kong, and he could not see the victory of the Anti-Japanese War.
summary
Leo Tolstoy once wrote in the Resurrection: Man is like a river, the water in all rivers is the same, the water everywhere is the same, but the water in every river is narrow in some places, wide in some places, turbulent in some places, flat in some places. Everyone has a variety of germs, sometimes showing such a nature, sometimes showing such a nature, sometimes becoming unrecognizable, in fact, it is still the original person. This is especially true for Cai Yuanpei, in such a complex era, practicing his own ideas to save the country, what he has done is also in his position and the choice of the times.
We cannot judge any historical figure by relying only on his words or one or two things, and then conclude him from God's point of view, so that it is easy to draw extreme and wrong conclusions. We must adhere to the materialist dialectical view of history, proceed from the background and class of his time, and comprehensively understand it before making a conclusion.