【What the Reader Says】
Author: Tong Jiaoying (Professor of Zhejiang University, daughter of Mr. Tong Shuye)
First of all, I would like to thank the Commercial Press for publishing the "Miscellaneous Works of the Children's Book Industry" on the 110th anniversary of the birth of my father, Mr. Children's Book Industry.
Due to my physical relationship, I have put aside my pen in recent years, but decades of admiration for Guangming Daily prompted me to hold the pen again. After the resumption of publication in 1978, Guangming Daily wrote to me and asked me if I had any posthumous articles of Mr. Tong that could be published by Guangming Daily. I attached a letter to the text, explaining that my father did not turn the book when he wrote the article, but that he must check the citations one by one before publishing. I am currently in a situation where I cannot go to the library for review, so I ask Guangming Daily to review and then publish it. What I never expected was that guangming daily reported my situation upwards and gave me an official letter asking me to go to the Propaganda Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee for an interview, so that I was transferred to Zhejiang University by chance in early 1979, and since then I have had the possibility of sorting out my father's writings. "Guangming Daily" takes scholarship as a public instrument and diligently strives to preserve the spirit of academic heritage, which still makes me feel admired!
Children's book couple and Gu Jiegang (center) profile picture
Children's Book Industry (1908-1968), a famous historian of the 20th century, studied under Gu Jiegang. Specializes in the study of pre-Qin history and ancient social and economic history.
My father's rigor influenced me all my life
I have a process of going from ignorance to clarity to my father and his scholarship, from subtle to rational understanding. Before 1949, due to the chaos of the situation, our family was far away from more gatherings and less gatherings, but at the Time of the New Year reunion, children were to kowtow to their parents, and the father always said: Exempted from the exemption. This affected my lifelong refusal to bend my knees to people and things. In 1949 (when I was 9 years old) until my father died unjustly, I never left my father, I saw my father was to hand over all the chores inside and outside the home to my mother, he did not trim the edges, he ate strangely, he wrote all day long but did not see him turn over the books, after writing a few days but piled a lot of books on the desk, soon the books returned to the shelves; every night before class, he shook his head and sang to the clock. Slowly, he knew that his memory was abnormal, and he wrote it by hand when writing, but he must proofread the original citation before sending it for publication. And his chanting is reciting the content of the next day's class, which is often conveyed by students: Mr. Tong's time of going to and from class is more accurate than the bell of the school worker. This rigor has subtly influenced my life.
I remember my father leaving the desk and getting along with me only two things: one was to show me a play. My father liked to watch dramas, liked Peking Opera martial arts dramas, I accompanied him once, the shocking sound of gongs and drums and the dizzying heels and dazzling sword shadows in the tight drumming, I really couldn't stand it, and resolutely refused to accompany him to watch the drama again. But he once asked me to show him the newly translated Soviet film "Peter the Great", and after watching it, I was greatly "admired" and thought that it was remarkable that I could understand the complex behavior of so many unnamed people. Of course, he never watched a movie again. Another thing is that my father likes to eat in the restaurant, and he and I both like Western food, which is exactly the same as our father and daughter, but my mother likes Cantonese food. But after 1958 both things stopped. I had naively thought that Shanda had moved to Jinan, and the environment of Jinan and Qingdao were completely different, which led to this. It was not until 1998, when I wrote a biography of my father at the request of the "Past and Contemplation" series, that I learned from the collection of information and interviews with the old and the informed. At this time, my father's extraordinary immersion in academic creation was intended to divert mental confusion and pain. Readers who want to understand the mental journey of their father during this period should see the "Biography of the Children's Book Industry" published by the China Encyclopedia Publishing House.
My father was superficially indifferent to me, but when my mother saw that I was addicted to novels and worried about my studies, he only said one sentence: "She will read good books" and never interfered with my reading. I like science, the college entrance examination is only allowed to take the liberal arts, I begged my parents to let me recover the disease and then take the science subject, my parents agreed, the result is that I can only take the liberal arts for three years, and my father only said: "Learn history with me." When he was admitted to the history department of Shandong University, he told me about the "Zuo Zhuan" at home, about the history of the pre-Qin Dynasty, and listened to the lectures with his graduate students at home, but I was never allowed to publish articles in college, and I was also indifferent. Does My Father Love Me? During the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, once I had a heart attack, he disregarded political risks and invited the Dprk doctor Bai Qiao across the street to come home to see me, agreed to the naïve me to recuperate for three years, meticulously and strictly cultivated my scientific research ability, and wanted to sacrifice himself to draft a big character newspaper criticizing him on my behalf during the "Cultural Revolution." The deeper the experience of life, the deeper the understanding of the deep, implicit love of the father.
Miscellaneous Works of the Children's Book Industry
Children's Books Authors Commercial Press
My father's thinking was meticulous and truth-seeking
After the end of the "Cultural Revolution", I was indifferent to rehabilitation, memorial services and the like, my father was only learned all his life, I repaid him with kindness and filial piety, the only thing I should do is to leave his academic innocence in academic history, and my bottom line is the word "innocence". When there were some events that made my ethics unacceptable, I was determined to collect, sort out, and publish it single-handedly, although it was very difficult, but with the support of the Ancient Books Department of Zhejiang Library and the publishing house, I finally spent nearly 30 years publishing my father's various treatises, and in 2008, I collected them into a collection of children's book industry works.
I sorted out my father's scholarship in seven fields: examination of ancient history and ancient books, ancient geography research, pre-Qin intellectual history research, historical theory research, ancient economic history research, Chinese art history research, psychology and psychiatry research, and a small item of literature and aesthetics.
After the finishing of the publication, he considered how to preserve his father's relics, hoping for the feelings of the hometown, and ventured to make a request to Tianyi Pavilion, who warmly accepted and set up a special counter for the children's book industry. When compiling the list of his father's relics, it was found that manuscripts that were previously considered repetitive, missing pages, or had been distilled into papers were not included in the Children's Book Industry Works Collection, but in fact they had their own characteristics. At this time, Mr. Lü Tai's re-disciple, Mr. Zhang Genghua, a professor of the History Department of East China Normal University, sent me several papers published by my father before 1949 that I had not found; Mr. Gu Chao, the daughter of Mr. Gu Tai and a researcher at the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, sent copies of 21 letters from my father to Mr. Gu Tai. Mr. Zhu Dai enthusiastically accepted and named it "Children's Book Industry Miscellaneous Works Collection". The title is so apt that a reader looking through the table of contents will find that it covers all projects in seven areas and one sub-item.
When my father instructed me to study the history of the pre-Qin Dynasty, he taught me that examination is a low-level stage in the study of history, and theory is a high-level stage in the study of history.
There are 21 letters from my father to Mr. Gu Tai in the "Miscellaneous Works of the Children's Book Industry". These letters were written by my father when he was studying and told me about the "Zuo Zhuan" if he found that he always wrote letters to Mr. Tai. It can be seen from these letters that the father, from the prophecies in the Zuo Zhuan, examines the historical facts of the near-demise shown in the prophecies from the historical materials, and at the same time examines the age of the book's writings, and then examines certain falsehoods that later generations have sneaked into from some phenomena that could not have existed in the era of this work, and can also examine the era in which such falsehoods sneaked in from the social phenomena reflected in these apocryphal statements, thus cleaning up the book itself, the records in the book, and the historical facts that are not clearly recorded. Only this one spot, you can see the whole leopard, the father's examination ideas are so meticulous to the truth. When it comes to seeking truth, my father once taught me that for any historical fact, we must collect as many positive and negative materials as possible, and then find out the evidence that refutes the negative materials. Therefore, my father made such a lasting study of the author and the era of the work of the "Left Transmission", and he still put it in the appendix in the book "Spring and Autumn Study of the Left Transmission".
How did my father study and apply Marxist theory? The late Mr. Fang Shiming, director of the Institute of History of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, once said to me: "Your father studied Marxist theory by means of examination evidence. This was vividly demonstrated in the controversy over the Asian mode of production set off by his father at the beginning of the founding of New China. In the controversy, he arranged all the works of Marx and Engels on the mode of production in Asia Minor in chronological order of writing, listed the changes in their exposition of the mode of production in Asia Minor, and then explained the changes in their statements from the process of deepening Marx and Engels's understanding of the ancient East. Thus arguing his definition of the Mode of Production in Asia Minor.
My father was very cautious about the conclusions of his theoretical research, which was most evident in the lecture notes and self-expression of the lectures he gave in the course on the history of the development of handicraft business. He said: "Because the historical materials are still insufficiently possessed, he does not dare to make more analysis of the theory," and said: "Its theoretical analysis is mostly found in the lecture notes, so it represents personal opinions, and the mistakes are also borne by the individual." "Miscellaneous Manuscripts of the Children's Book Industry" includes both 1955 and 1958 lecture notes. Among them, there is an analysis of the so-called "Factors of Chinese Capitalism" from the Warring States from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty, and he pointed out whether certain phenomena in the handicraft industry and commerce of various dynasties were factors of capitalist production. If so, what was its place in social production at that time? Can this status determine that China has sprouted the seeds of capitalism? If not, why are these phenomena that seem to be the embryo of capitalism not the embryo of capitalism? Father not only analyzed the development of Chinese handicraft commerce and cities from the perspective of Chinese society as a whole, but also compared them with ancient Eastern and even Western societies. All analyses and comparisons are based on the relevant works of Marx and Engels.
Father's academic ideas and academic achievements
At the age of 15, his father began to read painting posters and painting books, at the age of 18 he studied painting from Mr. Miao Guying, at the age of 19 he studied painting from the painting master Mr. Wang Xiu (Yunlan), and mr. Wang Tai introduced him to learn painting by correspondence from Mr. Hu Peiheng. At this time, he was taught traditional classics by a number of Confucians for a long time, and his historical roots became deeper and deeper, and the combination of the two was that at the end of 19, under the name of Pi Sheng, he published a short article on painting in the weekly magazine "Ding Zhen" sponsored by Mr. Wang Tai in the name of Pi Rope. After that, his father always studied painting and studied painting in the traditional study, and finally in 1936, in the Beijing "Archaeological Society Journal" published the "Distinguishing The Distinction Between the North and the South Sect of Chinese Landscape Painting" that shocked the animation industry, overturning the recognized landscape painting north and south sect theory in the painting circles since the Ming Dynasty on the basis of evidence, and later created the Chinese landscape painting north and south school theory. The history of painting has always been the focus of his father's research, and he has also become an important scholar in the school of painting history based on the method of evidence. In the "Children's Book Industry Miscellaneous Works Collection", several essays on the history of painting are also included, and I especially want to recommend the "Painting Classic" to readers, which is an article on teaching people to paint landscape paintings in Henglin, Changzhou, between 1943 and 1944, when my father cooperated with Bian Daren in Changzhou and published in Shanghai Family magazine. Written by his father, Mr. Bian wrote an essay, divided into six chapters of fun, charm, pen and ink, trees, mountain stones, and dot dyeing, and his father and Mr. Chengmingshi, who participated in the later period, hand-painted more than 140 illustrations, teaching people to paint landscape paintings in detail, this long article and the hand-drawn illustrations that match it are still available for readers who study traditional Chinese landscape painting techniques and are interested in learning Chinese painting.
His father began studying psychiatry in 1946 and participated in the treatment of patients, which he did not continue until the end of December 1966, when he completed the book "Diagnosis of Psychiatry". In the book, he analyzes the symptoms of eight mild psychosis, such as neurasthenia, hysteria, obsessive-compulsive disorder, mental debilitation, schizophrenia, paranoid psychiatric disorder, mania, and depression, compares their similarities and differences, and points out treatment methods. At this time, the "Cultural Revolution" had reached its peak, and my father still insisted on writing this book in the midst of criticism. It is often said that my father took scholarship as his life, but I feel that my father martyred his life in academia.
The Children's Book Industry Miscellaneous Works collection is included in the article "Diagnosis of Psychiatry", hoping that it will be helpful for the treatment of both psychiatrists and mildly mentally ill patients.
As I said at the beginning, "Miscellaneous Works of the Children's Book Industry" is mixed from the formal point of view, but from the content point of view, it covers the academic research of various fields of the father, and many pages also reflect the father's academic ideas and academic achievements quite profoundly. It is hoped that scholars who have seen this book and readers who are interested in certain areas of their fathers will find their own reading points according to their needs.
Guangming Daily (2019.08.17.09 edition)