People's Issue: Rong Hong
Biography: (Selected articles from Baidu Encyclopedia, with deletions)
Rong Hong (1828.11.17 – 1912.4.21), male, formerly known as Guangzhao, genealogical name Dameng, chunfu, English name Yung Wing, Guangdong Province, Xiangshan County, Nanping Village (now Nanping Town, Zhuhai), a famous educator, diplomat and social activist in modern China.
Rong Hong is the first Chinese student to graduate from Yale University in the United States, a pioneer in the cause of Chinese students, and is known as the "father of Chinese students."
01 Yale's first Chinese student
Rong Hong was born in November 1828 to an ordinary peasant family in Nanping Village, Xiangshan County, Guangdong Province.
Although Xiangshan is small, most people are familiar with this place name, because the village of Cuiheng in Xiangshan gave birth to sun Yat-sen, the father of the country.
Nanhai and Xinhui County, not far from Xiangshan, later walked out of Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao.
It is no accident that pioneers of change have emerged in all directions, and in the mid-19th century, the world trend was mighty, and the Pearl River Delta bore the brunt of it.
Rong Hong's hometown of Nanping is less than 4 miles away from Macau, which was occupied by Portuguese colonists.
(Rong Hong's Former Residence)
Rong Hong's brother entered the private school to take the "right way", and the family really had no money to provide Rong Hong, so he had to send the 7-year-old to the Macau Foreign School where all miscellaneous fees were free.
It is lamentable that the church school attended by Rong Hong was built by the notorious British crow dealer, war instigator and Chatton in modern Chinese history, and in 1840, Rong Hong dropped out of school due to the outbreak of the Opium War.
This is the contradiction of Rong Hong's growing environment, the villagers of the old family not only hate the "Red Hair Fan" running rampant in the township, but also appreciate the medical, educational, and charitable undertakings they have brought.
Rong Hong's father was an honest farmer, thinking that his children would learn to "talk" and do business with foreigners, and maybe they would be able to get rich.
He holds a "gamble" mentality, and he never expects that his son will be the first to open a generation of customs.
In 1843, The school where Yung Hong studied moved to Hong Kong and was renamed the Hong Kong Morrison Church School after the famous British missionary Morrison Morrison. The rector, S.R. Brown, was an American missionary who graduated from Yale University in 1832.
(Rong Hong and Robert Morrison Brown in Shanghai in 1869.) ）
（照片来源：Anita Marchant: Yung Wing and the Chinese Educational Mission at Hartford, New York: Outer Sky Press, 2008.）
According to Rong Hong's later recollection, Brown was "quiet in temperament, flexible in his dealings, polite, easy-going, and somewhat optimistic." He loves his students because he understands how hard they need to put in order to master their knowledge, and he himself spares no effort to educate them. In teaching, he has a unique talent, explaining things and reasoning, clear and clear, concise and easy to understand, and never learned. ”
Children learn arithmetic, geography and English in the morning and Mandarin in the afternoon. Rong Hong read there for six years. At the age of 18, a decision changed Rong Hong's life.
On that day, Mr. Brown came to the class and told the class that he had decided to go back to the United States because of his health. He wanted to take a few students with him so they could finish their studies in the United States.
(Sketch on yale campus a hundred years ago)
It was 1846, the United States was only 70 years old, such a young foreign country, far away on the other side of the ocean, how dare a teenager go to "die" without their parents' consent?
After a long silence, Rong Hong stood up. He wanted to see for himself the wonderful new world in the books.
Rong Hong was only a teenager at that time, and he plunged into a completely unfamiliar environment to overcome all the discomforts and did not relax at all in his studies. After three years of high school in the United States, Rong Hong was successfully admitted to Yale University.
(Rong Hong's handwriting when he was a student at Yale)
After the happiness, Rong Hong soon became worried about the tuition fee. Although the school board was willing to provide him with a scholarship, there was one condition: after graduation, Rong Hong would return to China to become a missionary.
Although he had a good feeling for Christianity, Rong Hong still refused the kindness of the school board: "Although I am poor, I want to remain free. No matter what industry he is engaged in, he will choose the most favorable chinese to do... Being a missionary is good, but it is not necessarily a unique cause that benefits China. ”
(Yale College around 1850)
Fortunately, Pastor Brown understood Rong Hong and managed to help him win financial assistance from a women's organization.
In 1850, Rong Hong entered Yale University with the support of American charitable organizations, and graduated with honors four years later.
He was the first graduate of Yale University and any American university, and his portrait hangs on the Yale campus today.
Lei Yi, a scholar of modern history, commented that if Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan were the pioneers of the "elite" class in modern China who "opened their eyes to see the world", then Rong Hong, a poor peasant boy, was the first grassroots to "open his eyes and see the world".
02 The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not an imaginary ideal kingdom
In 1855, when Rong Hong returned to China and the ship docked in Hong Kong, the American ship owner wanted to ask Rong Hong to act as an interpreter and asked the port leader where there was a reef. Rong Hong, who was a young child who left home, was suddenly gagged and couldn't remember how "reef" could be expressed in Chinese.
His face was flushed with embarrassment. This scene seems to predict the embarrassment of the second half of Rong Hong's life.
He has been in a church school since childhood, and although he has also studied the Four Books and Five Classics, he inevitably lacks traditional cultural literacy, let alone the sophistication of Chinese characteristics.
As a Chinese with American citizenship, it is difficult for him to integrate into the upper class, the strategy of serving the country is not adopted, and his ideas of total Westernization are often not adapted to China's national conditions.
(Main Building of Monsson Middle School)
In the early days of his return to China, Rong Hong worked in a foreigner's office in China, and as a result, he jumped three times in less than a year from Guangzhou to Hong Kong to Shanghai, all because he could not stand the discrimination of foreigners against Chinese, even if he was a high-achieving student at Yale.
In Hong Kong, Rong Hong became acquainted with Hong Renjie, the brother of Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Coming from a peasant family, Rong Hong had a natural sympathy and support for the Hong rebellion, and he even wanted to defect to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
In November 1860, Rong Hong gladly went to "Tianjing", met with Hong Renjie and put forward seven suggestions, mainly for education: the establishment of armed schools, naval schools, industrial schools, and the promulgation of school education systems at all levels, with the Bible as the main subject.
These suggestions are similar to Hong Renjie's "New Chapters of Senior Administration", but the traditional imperial ruling system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could not accept these nerve-wracking changes.
(Shanghai Municipal Collection, 1859 "New Chapter of Senior Administration", a national first-class protected cultural relic)
At that time, the heavenly power was in turmoil, the leading clique was corrupt and degenerate, bloody and infighting, and the generals were frequently fighting outside, protecting themselves and having no intention of changing.
Along the way, Rong Hong found that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was far from the ideal country he imagined, and he believed that the quality of the Taiping Army was low, the leaders were greedy for pleasure, and these people could not overthrow the Qing Dynasty, let alone realize his educational philosophy.
Disappointed, he left in despair.
03 Zeng Guofan was most admired in his life
In the autumn of 1863, Rong Hongjing was introduced to Anqing to meet Zeng Guofan. The first time they met, Rong Hong admired it so much that Zeng Guofan became the person Rong Hong admired most in his life.
"Wen Zheng is over the age of hua jia, and his spirit is strong... Although the eyes are not huge, but the light is extremely sharp, the eyes are hazelnut, and the mouth is wide and thin, which is enough to characterize its purpose and determination. ”
(Zeng Guofan statue)
Nowadays, "Zeng Guofan Xiangren Technique" has been repeatedly compiled into a book for workplace use, and in Rong Hong's account, it can be seen that Zeng Guofan's inspection of subordinates is indeed unique. For several minutes, he didn't say a word, looked at Rong Hong from head to toe, and finally stared at Rong Hong's eyes.
Rong Hong, who grew up with a Western-style education, was so directly looked at, it was inevitable that he would be restless, but fortunately he could still maintain his composure. For a long time, Zeng Guofan asserted: "Take the prism of Ru's gaze, and look and know as a person with courage." ”
During the chat, Zeng Guofan mentioned that he wanted to open a factory to manufacture "foreign guns and cannons". Rong Hong believes that importing equipment from foreign countries, even if guns are made, is equivalent to pinching people's necks.
Chinese want to be self-reliant, you must first learn to build machines that can produce guns.
(Cannon Factory of The General Bureau of Manufacturing in Jiangnan, Shanghai, 1870)
Zeng Guofan greatly appreciated Rong Hong's views, and the two reached a consensus, so the preparation of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, the largest military enterprise in modern times in our country, began.
04 The first rate of cold door young children to go abroad
The official international student program that Rong Hong was determined to promote in his early years finally had the support of a high-powered person. He stated his plan to Zeng Guofan, and sure enough, he was approved.
Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang jointly played the Tongzhi Emperor several times, and after receiving approval in the spring of 1872, he appointed Rong Hong as a vice-chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, mainly responsible for the selection and supervision of young children.
Between 1872 and 1875, four groups of 120 young children went abroad.
The cost was all borne by the government, and returning to China to arrange work now seemed like a pie in the sky, but at that time, no parents were willing to send their children to the "barbaric Fan state" of foreign devils, and it was 15 years after they were gone.
Rong Hong, the "director of the admissions office", started from his hometown of Xiangshan and surrounding villages and counties, mobilized door to door, and lobbied from door to door.
Almost none of the young children who signed up were the children of the powerful family, most of them came from poor backgrounds, and perhaps only such people could "open-mindedly".
(The first young children to stay in the United States in 1872)
As soon as young children arrive in the United States, they overcome language barriers at an astonishing rate and become the best students in schools. They unleash their full nature and make a splash in sports.
Rong Hong adopts an advanced "homestay" management method, so that the young children live in groups of two scattered in the local families who volunteer to sign up, so that the children can feel the warmth of the family and integrate into American society more quickly.
(Young children learn English under the guidance of foreign teachers)
However, as these children grew up day by day and achieved excellent results in local schools, the contradictions between Rong Hong and the "committee members" sent by the Qing court also deepened.
Some members of the CPPCC National Committee saw young children jumping up and down in physical education classes and reprimanded them for being out of character; some members held that the young children who studied Western culture in the United States would certainly have "no patriotism at all" in the future, which would be detrimental to the Chinese side; some members were unaccustomed to the young children seeing him and not performing rituals, believing that they were "blind to the teacher."
(Baseball team organized by Chinese young children studying in the United States)
The huge cultural differences between China and the United States inevitably led the children to make "great rebellions": they almost all took off their robes and coats and wore suits, some boldly cut their braids, went to the church with their masters to be baptized as "pagans", and saw that the Qing court officials did not kneel three times and prostrate themselves.
The news spread back to China, just like the Martian sub fell into the explosive pile, and the contradictions between all parties came to a general outbreak.
Prime Minister Yamen wrote directly to the emperor, demanding that the students who had gone abroad be withdrawn.
The first batch of young children, who are about to graduate from college, are now withdrawing to the point of failure. Rong Hong, who was almost desperate, rushed to the Cultural and Political Circles in the United States for help.
Porter, the president of his alma mater, Yale University, personally drafted a letter to the Qing government's prime minister Yamen, hoping that the international students would continue their studies; Rong Hong's pastor friend, led by the great writer Mark Twain, asked former US President Grant to write a letter to Li Hongzhang to turn the tide.
As the leader of the Westerners, Li Hongzhang did not want to ruin the study abroad program, but the conservatives had strong opinions.
It was precisely at this juncture that the US Congress passed the "Chinese Exclusion Act", Li Hongzhang did not fight a single blow, and Rong Hong lost the last straw.
In August of that year, nearly 100 "young children" boarded the ship in tears. Only Zhan Tianyou and Ouyang Geng obtained Yale degrees, and the rest were abandoned halfway.
(Zhan Tianyou yale university graduation photo)
In the early days of their return to China, these international students were ostracized and condemned for their "strange dress" and "ignorance of etiquette", and were arbitrarily assigned to industries that were not compatible with their studies at all.
Fortunately, they gained real talents and practical learning outside the country, and took care of each other, and a few years later, they grew into the backbone of the transformation of China.
From left: Liang Dunyan, Rong Shangqian, Shi Jinyong
From center left: Wu Yangzeng, Kang Gengling, Cao Jiaxiang
Bottom left: Pan Sizi, Zhou Shouchen, Huang Yaochang
Among them were Zhan Tianyou, a railway engineer, Wu Yangzeng, an engineer in the Management of the Kailuan Coal Mine, Cai Shaoji, president of Beiyang University, Tang Guoan, the first president of Tsinghua University, Tang Shaoyi, the founding premier of the Republic of China, Liang Dunyan, director of transportation at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and Ouyang Geng, a diplomat. Many more joined the Navy and were martyred in the Sino-Japanese War.
The students sent out by Rong Hong, after returning, regardless of their talents, insights, and personality, can be called a handsome master.
05 From Restoration to Revolution
After Rong Hong was recalled to China by the young children who stayed in the United States, he still did not give up, and proposed various plans to revitalize the country to the Qing government, all of which were closed.
Under the multiple blows, he indignantly concluded: "The reason for the failure of the National Bank plan is nothing more than the corruption of the Chinese administrative organs, which are honored by the empress dowager, lowly and officials, from top to bottom, all caused by bribery." ”
In 1898, Rong Hong was already a 70-year-old man, but the restoration and reform method made him rekindle his pride. He actively participated in various society activities of the Reform School, and both Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao attached great importance to this pioneer of reform.
Rong Hong provided his apartment in Beijing to the leader of the Restoration Party, and Rong Hong's home became one of the centers of the Restoration Movement.
(Left Kang Youwei Right Liang Qichao)
Three months after the change of law, it was stifled by conservatives such as Empress Dowager Cixi, and Beijing began to hunt down the reformists in an all-round way, and Rong Hong was also on the wanted list.
He absconded from Beijing and moved to Hong Kong via the Shanghai Concession. After this upheaval, Rong Hong's thinking became more radical, and he reunited with Kang Youwei in Singapore to discuss the revolt in the Yangtze River Valley and Guangdong to rescue the Guangxu Emperor.
In 1900, Rong Hong disguised himself as a merchant and boarded a ship to Japan under the pseudonym Taixi. Sun Yat-sen, who had failed to plot against Li Hongzhang and the Qing Dynasty, also hurriedly boarded the ship and fled.
Rong Hong and Sun Yat-sen, a pair of Fellow Xiangshan villagers, had a hurried meeting in London in 1896, and this time they were in the same boat to talk freely throughout the night.
(Statue of Sun Yat-sen)
Sun Yat-sen advocated overthrowing the Qing court and sweeping away the feudal dust, which Rong Hong had never thought of before.
All his life, he could not find a way to serve the country, and now he suddenly realized that the decadent autocratic system was a fundamental obstacle, and Rong Hong's thinking had undergone an essential change.
06 Rong Hong's dream of home country
In May 1911, at the age of 83, Rong Hong suffered a stroke at home in the United States. In October of that year, he received the news of the success of the Xinhai Revolution, and excitedly lay on his bed and wrote three letters to the old friends of the Revolutionary Party, congratulating the success of the revolution.
Sun Yat-sen replied, imploring Rong Hong to return to the republic of China, but Rong Hong's health deteriorated, and before he could set off, he died in a foreign country on April 21, 1912.
He encountered countless walls in his life, but he was never abandoned by the times, and before his death, he saw China move towards republicanism, which can be described as "the consummation of merit".
At the funeral, the priest read the eulogy: "If he had not been old, he would have personally participated in the revolution, and the flame of his innate love of loyalty to China would burn brilliantly until the end of his life." ”
(Tomb of Mr. Yung Hong at Cedar Ridge Cemetery on the outskirts of Haford, Connecticut)
More than a hundred years ago, he was the first Chinese student in Modern Chinese History to graduate from an American university, and the first Chinese scholar to emerge from Yale University.
Driven by a strong sense of patriotism and the ideal of rejuvenating China, he resolutely gave up the favorable conditions in the United States, returned to the motherland, and ran for the dream of an educational power in his heart.
He experienced the rise and fall of the two dynasties and five emperors, personally experienced the rise and fall of glory and disgrace at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and personally participated in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Foreign Affairs Movement, the Hundred Days Restoration, the Xinhai Revolution and other major events in modern China.
His life's experience has accompanied the cause of China's modern progress. Rong Hong's pure heart and historical weight far exceed his popularity.
In 2004, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Rong Hong University,
Zhuhai City presented a bronze statue of Rong Hong to Yale University,
Today, it is housed in the International Reading Room at the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University.
42 years after Rong Hong's death, in his honor, British scholars said in a speech at his alma mater, Yale University: "A country that can produce such a figure can achieve great things." The future of this country will never be lowly.
This sentence is dedicated to Mr. Rong Hong, and also to those overseas students who have gone abroad and returned to the motherland in modern times to dedicate their youth and blood to this country and the nation.
Source: Web
Reference: Zhang Rui'an: Rong Hong: A Forerunner of Modern Chinese Study Abroad Education
Ye Kefei: "The First To Wake Up: The First Batch of International Students in Modern China"
Rong Hong: Memoirs of Rong Hong
"National Humanistic History" WeChat public account