[The hardships of moving the school to the west, the painstaking work of everything, the mourning of the destruction of the family, the regret of "backward meteorology", and more ununderstood sorrows, the pressure of internal and external difficulties... Flipping through the diary, Zhu Kezhen has always been stoic, generous, self-denying, introspective, no matter how painful, there are few outspoken people. But he is not a hero with three heads and six arms, nor is he a King Kong who does not eat fireworks. 】
Zhu Kezhen's diary may have begun when he entered Harvard in 1913, but unfortunately, the diary before 1936 was lost to fire and then to war, and has disappeared, and the diary we can read today began on January 1, 1936, to February 6, 1974, the day before his death. The diary is coherent in time, clear in narrative, and meticulous in content, and is recognized by historians as "one of the most influential celebrity diaries of the 20th century". In particular, the part before the founding of New China completely records the educational philosophy, school-running feelings, and the five tastes of running a university in the smoke of war; and the 13 years of his long school Zhejiang University's going and staying can be described as going through twists and turns, painstakingly thinking, and quite nostalgic.
Zhu Kezhen, 1936
On December 9, 1935, pingjin colleges and universities launched the "12.9" anti-Japanese patriotic movement, which was echoed by students from all over the country. On December 24, "Guo Renyuan, president of Zhejiang University, was forced to resign because he obstructed the student march." On January 21 of the following year, Chiang Kai-shek was accompanied by Chen Bray on a visit to Zhejiang University, and entrusted Chen Bray, Xu Shaodi, and the Zhejiang University Council to deal with the aftermath. According to Chen Xunci, the first person to push Zhu Kezhen to Changzhe University was Zheng Xiaocang, who presided over the temporary school council in the name of provost at the time; and Zhu Kezhen knew that he was "lying on the gun" at the lunch table on January 28:
At noon, Xiao Tang and Xiaofeng had dinner in the Beautiful River, to Yong Ni, Xie Jihua, Feng Jinglan (Huaixi) and so on. According to Wing Ni Yun, the faculty and students of Zhejiang University were dissatisfied with the president Guo Renyuan, guo resigned, and the Ministry of Education had already allowed it, but Jiang decided to maintain Guo because the students rejected the president for a long time, and when Guo resigned, someone sent Yu to changzhe University. (Diary dated 28 January 1936)
At that time, Zhu Kezhen had been working and living in Nanjing for more than ten years. Although the Nanjing diary before 1936, including the earlier Harvard diary, has ceased to exist, from the brief Nanjing diary at the beginning of this year, we can still see that as the director of the Geological Department of Southeast University, the director of the Arctic Pavilion Meteorological Research Institute, the president of the Chinese Meteorological Society and the commentator of the Academia Sinica, Zhu Kezhen in Nanjing can be described as a handy worker, his career is like day in the day, his life is calm and happy, in addition to guiding the construction of meteorological observatories in various places and organizing meetings of the society, he also accompanied his wife to visit relatives and friends, and taught his eldest son Zhu Jin to learn English. Take the kids to see Xiulan Dumber's "Little Girl", and everything is the best look.
Of course, the troubles of the internal and external political situation here are the topics that plague Zhu Kezhen's table:
At 6:30 a.m., Zhou Hanzhang invited him to dinner, to Yimou, Xiao Tang, Xiaofeng, Wang Huanwei, Zhang Tingxiu, Miao Zanyu, Zhan Shu, Zhengong and so on. Zhang Tingxiu said that the government now has the determination to resist, and within two or three months it may launch a cloud. Zhang and He Jingzhi were quite close, so it seemed that they could represent the opinions of the military department, covering themselves to the point where they could not bear it. (Diary of 2 February 1936)
Signs of war are everywhere:
The "Zi Lin Xi Bao" carried that last month, China bought arms in the United States, with a total value of three million gold yuan, which amounted to three-quarters of the [mouth] of the entire US military. (Diary of 7 February 1936)
According to Shi Yingyun, the government has decided to resist, and the current government has shipped the cash to Chengdu Yunyun. (Diary of February 11, 1936)
Pessimism about the current situation even makes Zhu Kezhen have plans to sell his house:
Yu Yuanren, in view of the critical situation, planned to sell the house, so that if the salary was not paid, the bank could not pay back the money due on a monthly basis. Yuan Renyun, this matter should not be limited to one or two people, and the temporary payment of Yunyun can be postponed. If the government indiscriminately issues paper tickets, after the house is sold, it is equivalent to getting some waste paper, so the matter is abandoned. (Diary dated 10 February 1936)
Zhu Kezhen has two residences in Nanjing, namely the new residence on Luojia Road and the old residence on Jimingsi Road. It is speculated that zhu Kezhen still needs to repay the loan on a monthly basis, or the new house on Luojia Road is proposed to be sold. In April of that year, Zhu Kezhen went to Hangzhou alone, and his family remained in Nanjing, until the bombing of Nanjing in August of the following year, Zhu Kezhen moved to Hangzhou, and moved west with his family with the school, and his wife and second son Zhu Heng were ill and died of Taihe. When he returned to Nanjing again, it was after the victory of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in 1945. He went to the Arctic Pavilion first:
The radio house is still good, but the doors and windows are all gone. Looking up and down from the mountain, I saw that the whole city was still the same, and I couldn't help but feel that the country and mountains were still the same, and the face was completely different. The grass in the courtyard is deep, and the walls are in disrepair... (Diary of October 14, 1945)
Zhang Xia's soul remains
The next day, he returned to "home" and learned that "all books were dead", including a diary from the 10 years after the fire in 1927:
At ten o'clock, Yu Kai Gao Yuhuai to Luojia Road No. 22, from Jiangsu Road to. The appearance is no different from eight years ago, and the inner dwelling is pseudo-financial [long]... Chen Junyan. Chen has been detained, including his wife and daughter... All the remaining books are dead. Asked, according to Yun, there is no bookshelf at present, and it can be known without reading books. The interior decoration is very good, but the grass and trees have not increased, but it is tall and tall. Add a brick house to the back, which is used by the guards. (Diary of October 14, 1945)
This is an afterthought, back to 1936. At 8:00 p.m. on February 11, Weng Wenhao (Wing Ni), secretary general of the Executive Yuan of the National Government, visited and formally informed him of his proposal to become president of Zhejiang University. In Zhu Kezhen's view, the impending war and the crisis situation are naturally a huge threat to the teachers and students of the school; and if you stand in the perspective of the university director, a campus that cannot fit a quiet desk is even more difficult to maintain. Therefore, Zhu Kezhen immediately had the following statement:
Yu said that at this time, it was difficult to ensure that there would be no war in March and April, and Beijing and Hangzhou could not take into account the situation, so Yu was unwilling to do so, if he could make up for it in Zhejiang University, Yu was also willing to go all out. (Diary of February 11, 1936)
This should be Zhu Kezhen's basic attitude, as an intellectual, when there is a conflict between personal interests and the interests of the overall situation, Zhu Kezhen chooses to sacrifice himself.
Ten days later, Chiang Kai-shek made an appointment:
After staying for about an hour, Jiang Shi came and covered the military academy with a motto. Stay for about five minutes, that is, see Jiang with Bree. Qu initially asked if Yu had originally come from Beiping, and Yu told him that he had been to Beiping last year, but Qu yi thought that Yu Fang had returned from Beiping. The next time, Yu went to Hangzhou to go to Hangzhou changzhejiang to do something important, and Yu told him that he had to talk with Mr. Cai before he could decide. Qu Intended to allow Yu Toren, Yu told him that he still had to consider it, and the conversation took about seven or eight minutes to come out. (Diary of 21 February 1936)
Considering that the matter has reached this point, or it is difficult to resign, Zhu Kezhen envisions his half-year covenant with many practical difficulties:
Yu's personal difficulties lie in: First, he is not good at serving ministers, committee chairmen, etc., and he does not care about it; second, the situation is like this, in case of a civil war in half a year, Yu cannot leave Hangzhou, he cannot help but be worried; third, Yu's purpose is not to be able to be a principal for a long time, so it is difficult to see the results within half a year. (Diary of February 25, 1936)
Later, Cai Yuanpei suggested a one-year period and promised to recommend a successor, and Shao Yuanchong and Zhang Mojun also advised them to "try it for the time being", because "this can be used to change the style of learning and show their embrace". With the encouragement and support of the division commander, friends, and family, on April 26, 1936, Zhu Kezhen went to Zhejiang University to take over the affairs. However, he was "unwilling to give up the meteorological research project" and "it is not a way to do it for a long time", so he always remembered the "half-year" period. In addition to not moving home and not leaving the house, a piece of unpunished evidence is that in mid-October of this year, in the name of reporting on the improvement of school affairs in the past six months, Zhu Kezhen entrusted Chen Bray to forward the article "The Improvement of Zhejiang University in the Past Six Months" to Chiang Kai-shek. Obviously, this report has a bit of a layout of the forward and backward - to advance as "retreat" function.
Later, we learned that after Zhu Kezhen obtained the two privileges of "financial support and full authority for the principal", the requirement of "limiting half a year" was far away, and for 10 years, Zhu Kezhen took his university into exile on the brink of war and endured countless hardships.
During this period, he resigned as principal ten times, and the first nine times he could not succeed for various reasons, from the official not allowing him to leave, to the westward migration can not go, to the teachers and students will not let go. Until April 29, 1949, Zhu Kezhen decided to avoid it after confirming that the Zhejiang masters and students could keep them safe and that he had no reason to stay at Zhejiang University. From April 26, 1936 to the school to see the matter, Zhu Kezhen took over the Changzhe University for 13 years.
Zhu Kezhen's desire to get rid of Zhejiang University, whether it is for a half-year contract or for a meteorological undertaking that is unwilling to give up, is very understandable. But the resignations submitted by the students because they did not listen to the dissuasion of the strike and the march may give us more speculation about the principal's thoughts.
In the past 13 years, Zhu Kezhen has been from the age of 47 to 60, from the right year of a scientist to the age of nearly dying of old age, and he has left Hangzhou with the last sentence "Yu has been disgusted with the position of president of Zhejiang University!" He wrote all the tiredness, resentment, sourness and grievances brought to him by the 13-year-old zhejiang university, including the hardships of moving the school to the west, the painstaking work of everything, the mourning of the destruction of the family, the regret of "lagging meteorology", and more ununderstood sorrows and the pressure of internal and external difficulties. Flipping through the diary, Zhu Kezhen has always been stoic, generous, self-denying, introspective, no matter how painful, there are few outspoken people. But he is not a hero with three heads and six arms, nor is he a King Kong who does not eat fireworks, as an old man who has endured so much suffering and hardship, 13 years of persistent resignation and the feeling of finally getting rid of it hide too many heavy thoughts.
The record of zhu kezhen's resignation from the president of Zhejiang University in the diary
Li Hangchun system
Zhu Kezhen left Zhejiang University with an inexplicable sadness. Zhejiang University has always been able to gain from Zhu Kezhen's many people, the spirit of seeking truth and learning, the concept of teaching and educating people, the reputation of "Oriental Cambridge", and even the establishment and scale of comprehensive universities, all of which have been laid and promoted under the rule of Zhu Kezhen; and Zhu Kezhen has won Zhejiang University, or only the word "sacrifice".
Zhu Kezhen is the greatest president in the history of Zhejiang University, which is the consensus of hundreds of thousands of Zhejiang University alumni. However, it is worth mentioning that this evaluation is accompanied by colleagues, friends, and young students who have not understood, forgiving, or even supporting, not cooperating, and have endured humiliation and burden.
When he first arrived, in order to "find a group of like-minded professors", Zhu Kezhen began to recruit outstanding scholars in various disciplines on a large scale. He selects teachers and hires professors, neither nepotism nor evasion of relatives, but only ability, learning, cultivation and whether it is helpful to cultivate talents as the standard. He recruited Mei Guangdi (Di Sheng), Zhang Qiyun (Xiaofeng), Hu Gangfu and other right-hand men and masters of traditional Chinese studies such as Ma Yifu and Liu Yizheng, and tried his best to create the best possible conditions for them to govern their studies, including the establishment of various committees with professors as the main body in the school, and at the same time to strive for continuous financial support to lay the foundation for Zhejiang University to take off. Among them, because of the introduction of a large number of teachers and students from Southeast University, Zhu Kezhen was once voted anonymous, accused of "planting the party for personal gain", and was listed as one of the "nine major crimes", and even set up a "Zhejiang University Exorcism Group" in the school.
During the period of westward migration, Zhu Kezhen followed the conditions of school selection such as "having public buildings to be used as school buildings", "rich in products and low prices of goods", and "a corner of partial security, no military value", and led Zhejiang masters and students to build Demeicheng, Ji'an Taihe, Guangxi Yishan and other places before finally settling in Zunyi Meitan. This move was accompanied by many criticisms and accusations, the most intense time, the students threatened to step down from the principal, and his friend Mei Guangdi also expressed regret about Zhu Kezhen's way of moving the school in one step, saying in his family letter on June 30, 1938: "Recently we may have to move again, to Guangxi or Guizhou. ...... We all blame those responsible for not getting the school further. At the beginning of the relocation, we should go to Guangxi, Guizhou or Yunnan. Today, thousands of dollars have been smashed here — building houses, building dams, furnishing all rooms, etc. — all in vain. ”
In the face of these accusations and even expulsions, Zhu Kezhen acted frankly with selflessness in his heart, confessed his principle of "only taking right and wrong as the premise, and disregarding the interests", and finally won the respect and support of teachers and students with brilliant facts. But its inner bitterness and loss are difficult for outsiders to know.
On November 19, 1938, Zhu Kezhen's diary set the school motto of "Seeking Truth"
For the college students of the proud son of heaven, Zhu Kezhen has always loved and loved them. In addition to teaching them to stick to the "spirit of seeking truth", understand the "responsibility of college students", can distinguish between right and wrong, watch the gains and losses, dare to pursue true knowledge, and explore the truth; he is also like a hen protecting the chicks, always ready to open his wings to protect every young person in the school. Some of the students had lung disease, typhoid fever, meningitis, falciparum malaria and other diseases, he visited regularly, and the death of every young man became the most painful record in his diary; after the death of His wife Zhang Xia's soul, Zhu Kezhen stored 1,000 yuan of the national currency as the "Lady of the Chivalrous Scholarship Fund" to reward female college students whose families were cold and had excellent academics; students were arrested and confined to the training group because they were involved in sports, and Zhu Kezhen rescued and visited them in many ways. On May 29, 1943, on his way back to Chongqing from Beibei, Zhu Kezhen hiked seven or eight miles and took a detour to visit Wang Hui and He Youyu at the Wuyun Mountain Youth Training Group in Aokiguan:
Yu got off at Xiaowan Station and went to visit Wang Hui and He Youyu. Ask the people at the station to know that the wartime youth training regiment is seven or eight miles away from the station. Yu walked to the southeast from 8:20 a.m., a stone slab road, to a stone bridge, the mingqunli bridge, which is already Wuyun Mountain. The training group is in Wuyun Village. Yu Shangzhai looked for the captain Chen Shangchuan, and immediately summoned Wang Hui to talk for about half an hour. Wang Hui accused Yu of his arrest, saying that he was mainly anti-Kong, and made a personal vendetta against the Hunan student Yang surnamed Yang for losing his golden ring. After arriving in Guiyang, He Youyu confessed because he was beaten three times... (Diary of 29 May 1943)
In just 10 days after the Yuzisan Massacre in 1947, Zhu Kezhen intensively contacted and visited many people, including police officers of the Security Command, chief procurators, forensic inspectors, prison chiefs, legal advisers, provincial government chairmen, provincial party officials, newspaper reporters, and student representatives, and went to Nanjing to meet with officials of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice and Administration, and the Executive Yuan, and made representations on this tragedy.
But on the other hand, in the past 13 years, Zhu Kezhen's implementation of school rules and discipline has never been gentle and has never lost its principles. In fact, Zhu Kezhen was expelled for severely restricting students, in addition to Zhu Kezhen's resignation from school for reasons such as cheating on examinations and failing examinations, students who were recorded, placed on probation, ordered to withdraw from school, or expelled for various violations of discipline were by no means a small number. In July 1941 alone, 13 students were punished for obstructing the final examinations, including 1 expulsion and 3 orders for withdrawal, 5 older and 4 younger. Enforcement of discipline can be described as harsh.
As the only non-Kuomintang president of a national university during the Republic of China period, Zhu Kezhen's attitude towards student strikes and associations was very clear, that is, he did not oppose students' political beliefs, but did not approve of too much interference in students' studies. "Students should bury their heads in learning, otherwise they can join the military." However, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, with the continuous escalation of the war, the wave of strikes inside and outside the school rose and fell. In the Yu Zisan incident, zhu Kezhen formally submitted his resignation for the 8th time for the whole school to repeatedly persuade the students not to listen and continue to strike for nearly 4 weeks:
The tragic death of Yu Zisan was investigated. As for Yu's resignation, it was because the security organs did not listen to me, which led to yu's tragic death. And if your classmates don't listen to me, it will inevitably be that there will be no more accidents in the future, so Yu cannot be responsible. (Diary dated 8 November 1947)
How much heartache is implied here, how much love can not help! The superposition of that kind of worry and helplessness will form a squeeze on the psychology of the parties, and how much it will affect Zhu Kezhen's final decision to abandon the university he has been in charge for 13 years, we cannot know for sure. But in fact, this is Zhu Kezhen's other form of love and protection for students, protecting the absorption of his knowledge, protecting the growth of his wisdom, protecting the safety of his body and the health of his personality, striving to "educate and save the country", truly understanding that there is no limit to learning between heaven and earth, and that the strong enemy and the tree state rely on knowledge the most.
Zhu Kezhen's insistence, students have not understood, not accepted; to go to society, most of them, throughout their lives, have been spreading and practicing the "spirit of seeking truth" and "college students' responsibility". In this sense, Zhu Kezhen may never leave the university he has worked for 13 years, and he is the eternal president.
(Author Affilications:Institute of Advanced Studies in humanities, Zhejiang University).)