【Everyone walking together with one heart】
Author: Pan Chenjing (Director of The Department of International Chinese Education, School of International Cultural Exchange, Chinese Min University)
Biography of scholars
Wu Yuzhang (1878-1966), a native of Rong County, Sichuan. Revolutionary, educator, historian, and philologist. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1925. He once served as the president of Yan'an University, the president of North China University, the president of Chinese Min University, and the director of the Chinese Character Reform Committee. He is the author of "Xinhai Revolution", "Memoirs of Xinhai Revolution", "Introduction to Chinese History Courses", "Collected Writings on Character Reform" and so on.
Wu Yuzhang's life was full of ups and downs and full of legends. Not only did he have a firm revolutionary conviction and was always committed to the revolutionary struggle, but he was also an outstanding intellectual. Wu Yuzhang has extensively dabbled in many disciplines, especially in linguistics, history, education and other aspects, and his academic works, academic philosophies, and educational ideas are a valuable spiritual wealth.
The statue "Principal Wu Yuzhang with Students" located in the school of Chinese Min University. Photo courtesy of Chinese Min University Archives
Embark on the revolutionary road
When Wu Yuzhang was a teenager, he set up the ideal of saving the country and saving the people, but his search for the bright road was difficult and tortuous. In 1892, when 14-year-old Wu Yuzhang went to Chengdu Zunjing Academy to study, when he visited Wuhou Ancestral Hall, Du Fu Caotang and other scenic spots with his classmates, he often thought of the country's critical survival. The corrupt study and politics at the end of the Qing Dynasty ruined Wu Yuzhang's future of studying and studying, and he had to abandon his studies and go home. The "Treaty of Maguan" signed after the Sino-Japanese War made him sad and worried about the future of the country, and began to look for a way to save the country and survive. Later, under the influence of Kang Liang, he decided to become a fighter for the reform of the law. The reality of the failure of the Wushu reform method made Wu Yuzhang bitterly realize that reform in China would not work, and a new way must be found. In March 1903, Wu Yuzhang sold his land, bid farewell to his wife and children, and traveled east to Japan, hoping to study abroad while seeking a way to save the country. In Japan, he came into contact with Sun Yat-sen's "Three People's Principles" and was deeply impressed, and immediately joined the League and revised the direction of national salvation. Unfortunately, his and his fellow league members failed in their efforts to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. In 1911, the Wuchang Uprising broke out, and the fire of the Xinhai Revolution swept across the country. Recalling this period of history, Wu Yuzhang said: "The most honored and happy thing for me to run for the revolution is nothing more than this. However, due to the limitations of history, the vigorous Xinhai Revolution ended in failure. Wu Yuzhang, who was once again confused on the road to national salvation, had to embark on a ship to France. In search of revolutionary truths, in 1914 he entered the University of Law in Paris to study political economy, while actively following the development of the revolutionary situation in the country. When he returned to his homeland again, he was still constantly searching for the dawn of the revolution. In April 1925, Wu Yuzhang joined the Communist Party of China. Since then, he has affectionately summed up the revolutionary road he has traveled: "When I joined the party, I was 47 years old. The first half of my life was spent groping forward on a bumpy road. Since I was a teenager, I have been suffering and anxious about the troubles of the country, and I have been running for it, trying to find a bright road in the wilderness full of jackals. However, after nearly 30 years of searching, after defeat, victory, and defeat, until the October Revolution and Marxism-Leninism spread to China, I found the truth and embarked on a correct and bright revolutionary road. How long and difficult the journey I have been has been! ”
In the old democratic revolution and the new democratic revolution, Wu Yuzhang braved himself and made his own contributions. At the same time, Wu Yuzhang loved to learn all his life, adhered to a rigorous and realistic academic style, and made great achievements in many fields such as education, history, language and writing. When Wu Yuzhang first arrived in Moscow in 1929, he didn't even know a single Russian letter. More than half a hundred years old, he overcame the difficulties of memory decline and less flexible speech than young people, raced against the clock, read the evening, and nibbled on one Russian textbook after a year, and successfully passed the difficulty of Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing in Russian after a year. No matter how difficult the situation, he insisted on studying, insisted on writing books and theories, and became a famous scholar in the revolutionary ranks. At the same time, academia is also a powerful weapon for him to carry out revolutionary struggles and an ideological weapon for him to save the country and the people. In the history of the Communist Party of China, Wu Yuzhang, together with Dong Biwu, Xie Jueya, Lin Boqu, and Xu Teli, was called the "Five Elders of Yan'an." They belonged to the same generation of intellectuals of the "Xinhai" generation, and later they all actively devoted themselves to the great cause of communism. In the long-term revolutionary practice, the "Five Elders of Yan'an" have actively propagated and studied Marxism and continuously promoted the sinification of Marxism. They specialize in their profession and are therefore able to apply Marxism more flexibly to their respective fields. Among them, Wu Yuzhang has made fruitful achievements in the fields of history and linguistics. In terms of history, he applied Marxist theory to the study of Chinese historical issues, and was one of the pioneers of the new Historiography of Marxism in China, and his ideas and viewpoints occupy an important position in the history of China's modern academic development. In terms of linguistics, he devoted a lot of energy to the reform of writing.
Wu Yuzhang checks the children's learning of Hanyu Pinyin at the primary school. Photo courtesy of Chinese Min University Archives
Promote the simplification of Chinese characters
Why is Wu Yuzhang so active and committed to the reform of Chinese characters? Because in his view, the reform of Chinese characters is not only a simple change of characters, but also the foundation of Changming's education, development of science and technology, and revitalization of the country, and is the only way for him to realize the ideals of patriotism, service to the country, and strengthening the country.
Wu Yuzhang has always regarded popularizing education and improving the cultural quality of the people as an important goal of literary reform. "I am already eighty years old, I have learned to use Chinese characters since I was a child, if I am an individual, I do not have to advocate character reform at all, but for the people and future generations, I must adhere to the reform of characters and fight for it to the end." Wu Yuzhang said this in his report at the 1958 National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Such a thick and warm heart comes from the responsibility of being an intellectual, and from the deep love for the country and the people. Simplifying Chinese characters and bringing unprecedented changes to the education, science, and culture of new China, which we still use today. However, as the smoke and dust of history fade away, many people's misunderstanding of Chinese characters is deepening. We recall and commemorate Wu Yuzhang's participation in the process of writing reform, which can uncover the historical truth, deepen our understanding of modern Chinese characters, and simplify the original Chinese characters.
In the first half of the 20th century, the number of illiterate people in China accounted for more than 80% of the country's total population. Wu Yuzhang profoundly realized that the illiteracy of the vast majority of people has seriously affected the popularization of culture, and an important reason for illiteracy is the difficulty of Chinese characters. Lu Xun's novel "Kong Yiji" has a satirical plot of small intellectuals' smugness about "variant characters", "There are four ways to write huizi, do you know? "The multi-faceted word has caused many difficulties and obstacles to the literacy of ordinary people. Therefore, as early as the Ming and Qing dynasties, some literati began to consciously use simplified characters, and there were remarks, articles and works on simplified characters. After the May Fourth New Culture Movement, at the same time as the rise of the Chinese Roman alphabet movement, simplified characters were also developed. In 1920, Qian Xuantong published an article in the New Youth advocating simplified characters. Wu Yuzhang often discussed the ways and plans for the reform of Chinese characters with Comrades Such as Lin Boqu, and on the basis of joint research, he wrote the "Textbook for the Initial Study of Latinized Chinese Characters" in 1930. Combining the experience of foreign character reform, he recognized the necessity and possibility of Chinese character reform.
In the early days of the founding of New China, the current situation in which the illiterate population in China accounted for the majority did not change substantially compared with that before the founding of New China. From the 1950s to the 1960s, China launched several literacy campaigns to address literacy issues. Mr. Hu Mingyang, a famous linguist, once told a story that when he was a child, he was always unable to completely write the traditional character "chicken" into the small grid on the paper, so that he "hated the house and Wu", and chased and beat the chicken when he saw it. The simplification of Chinese characters has reduced the complexity of Chinese characters to a certain extent and provided help for literacy teaching. Literacy experiments were conducted in literacy classes using both simplified and traditional characters, and the result was that the use of simplified characters was about 20 per cent more efficient than the use of traditional characters. At that time, Beijing opened many literacy classes, including factories, schools, and cultural centers. There is a girl named Li Ruiying in the accelerated literacy class of the Sixth Cultural Center, who goes to the literacy literacy class to raid more than a hundred new words every day. She always carries chalk and books in her pocket, reads when she walks, writes when eating, and recognizes words until two or three o'clock in the night every day. Three months later, she learned 2,000 words, was able to read and write letters, and was named a model of learning. This shows the important role played by simplified words in the literacy campaign. Studies have shown that in literacy instruction, simplified characters are about 15% more efficient than traditional characters, while in writing they are more than 40%. To popularize education in China, literacy education must be premised on it, and an illiterate person cannot talk about basic education such as mathematics and physics. Therefore, the effect of universal cultural education is closely related to the breadth and depth of literacy education. It can be said that the efficiency of literacy education is directly related to the development of education, national development and social progress. Wu Yuzhang came out of the old China with difficulties and had an urgent sense of urgency to improve the country's education level and scientific and technological capabilities. Carrying out the reform of Chinese characters is his lifelong academic ideal and pursuit, and this ideal and pursuit comes from his original intention and mission for the country and the people.
Photo courtesy of Chinese Min University Archives
Explore Hanyu Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin now plays an irreplaceable role in language education, international Chinese education, and computer applications. People use Hanyu Pinyin as well as they use Chinese characters, so that they don't think about the historical storms and tribulations it has experienced. At the beginning, Wu Yuzhang and other scholars explored the road of Hanyu Pinyin and formulated the "Hanyu Pinyin Scheme" was very arduous. The use of the Latin alphabet alone was questioned at the time and met with great resistance. Wu Yuzhang said: "Some people think that the Latin alphabet is good, but it is not created by us in China, so when I hear that I want to use it to spell our Chinese, I always feel a little awkward. "At that time, he was able to stand on the height of history, the world and the future, and advocate the use of the universal Latin alphabet to pronounce Chinese characters, rather than the Roman alphabet, Slavic alphabet, etc., which is indeed a great thing in today's view."
Hanyu Pinyin has played an important role in helping Chinese characters to eradicate illiteracy and improve the level of education. A large number of experiments have shown that as long as you master the 26 letters and pinyin methods, you can use pinyin to learn Chinese characters, and then you can read Chinese characters and pinyin reading materials, thereby further improving reading ability. At that time, Wang Meirong of Pingyuan County, Shandong Province, was a mother with a four-year-old child, and it took 9 days to suddenly learn 1500 words, and everyone called her a "literate female champion". After a few months, she "revived" more than 600 words, and later she learned pinyin in eight or nine days, not only "re-ripening" all the words of "rejuvenation", but also being able to read Zhuyin reading materials and learn new characters through pinyin, solving the "roadblock" in reading. After the publication of the Hanyu Pinyin Scheme, the number of illiterates in the country suddenly dropped from 80% to 52%. Both men, women and children have set off a wave of learning Chinese characters and reading books and newspapers. In the practice of promoting Hanyu Pinyin, Wu Yuzhang has always fought in the front line and personally traveled to many provinces and cities to promote the teaching of Hanyu Pinyin. In the 1950s, he first selected several classes in the kindergarten of Chinese University as "test fields" for Hanyu Pinyin and let the children in the class try their lessons. He personally went to the kindergarten to listen to the children read and test the effect of the "Hanyu Pinyin Scheme". In 1960, despite his advanced age, he went to a rural area on the outskirts of Harbin, and when the north wind was whistling and the snow was flying, he took crutches in his hand and patiently asked the peasants about learning Hanyu Pinyin, and did not return to the station until dusk. With his efforts, the "Hanyu Pinyin Scheme" was gradually implemented among the masses to teach, learn, and try.
Nowadays, Hanyu Pinyin has become the "crutch" and "grasp" of international Chinese education, and many foreigners who mainly learn spoken Chinese use Hanyu Pinyin to complete their studies, which is due to the Latin alphabet scheme used at that time. In the process of Chinese going to the world, Hanyu Pinyin also played a huge role, which is a precious cultural wealth left to us by Wu Yuzhang and others. The charm of a country's culture and the cohesion of a nation are mainly expressed and transmitted through language, and mastering a language is to grasp the key to a country's culture. Chinese characters and Hanyu Pinyin are just such a golden key.
On July 17, 1956, the Chinese Character Reform Committee promoted the graduation of the Mandarin training class. Photo courtesy of Chinese Min University Archives
Be honest in your studies
In 1940, Wu Yuzhang reviewed in the article "Sixty Self-Descriptions" that he did not be lazy, not scrupulous, not halfway, tenacious and patient. He believes that learning comes from hard work and hard work, and learning must be honest and honest, which is the attitude of wu Yuzhang throughout his life.
His study of Chinese characters is a good interpretation of his academic style. The study of Chinese characters is a very difficult and trivial matter, which not only requires a deep academic foundation, but also requires a lot of time and energy. For thousands of commonly used Chinese characters, it is necessary to clarify the ins and outs of each word, and to collect folk characters, manuscript characters, and daily life characters from previous dynasties and dynasties. While engaging in arduous revolutionary work, in the period when the struggle against the enemy is facing the test of life and death, in an environment of lack of material conditions and lack of reference materials, it is conceivable how difficult this is. In order to verify the ins and outs of a word, he often stayed up for several nights. After writing "The Origin of Chinese Characters and Their Reform Plan", he actually lost more than a dozen pounds.
His attitude and understanding of the reform of the script is realistic, he pointed out: "We do not intend to replace Chinese characters with new characters at the moment, what we must do now is to use the new script to educate illiteracy, so that they can learn politics and science with the new script in the shortest possible time, and can also use the new script to learn Chinese characters." Wu Yuzhang believes that scientific research must dare to break the old things and create new things.
Insisting on independent thinking, carrying out criticism and self-criticism are important methods for Wu Yuzhang to rigorously manage his studies. In the practice of character reform, he paid great attention to correcting shortcomings and mistakes in his work, for example, when carrying out the new writing movement in Yan'an, he found that there were some errors in people's thinking and work, so he pointed out the problems of closed-doorism, sectarianism and subjectivism in the report of the first annual meeting of the New Writing Association in December 1941, "Experiences and Lessons of the New Script in practical implementation". In order to further eliminate the gap between the Latinized New Script and the Chinese Roman script in the past, he wrote the following inscription in February 1950 for Le Kam-hee's Treatise on the Chinese New Script: "Deepen the study of the scheme, absorb the advantages of the Chinese Roman script, the New Latinized Script, and other reform schemes, and remove their shortcomings in order to find a perfect plan." The later "Hanyu Pinyin Scheme" was formulated in accordance with this spirit.
New China is in ruins to be rebuilt. Wu Yuzhang refused the important administrative leadership post to be appointed by the Government Council, and resolutely threw himself into the cause of education and cultivated talents for socialist construction. When the Party Central Committee decided to establish the first new type of regular university in New China, the highly respected Wu Yuzhang was appointed as the first president. Despite his advanced age, he personally traveled to raise school buildings and prepare for enrollment. On October 3, 1950, Chinese University was officially opened, opening a new chapter in the establishment of a new type of socialist regular university by the Communist Party of China. Wu Yuzhang attaches great importance to educating young people on their ideal future and asks them to set clear goals of struggle, because "the question of what road young people take is a major issue that has a bearing on the rise and fall of the country and the success or failure of the revolution." Wu Yuzhang said: "Young people must first set up ambition and set great aspirations; second, they must measure their strength and be determined to be a useful talent for the country and the people; for this reason, they must choose a goal to strive for study and practice." "He not only demanded that every young person should have ideals, ambitions, and lofty ambitions, but also should always strive for them." To be able to dedicate oneself to the cause of one's own motherland and to fight for the realization of one's ideals is the most glorious thing. "Life is in the world, career is important." A breath is still there, never slackened. The east wind is gaining momentum, the times are renewed, take this opportunity to move forward courageously. ”
In the early years, Wu Yuzhang wrote such a poem on the way to Japan: "Do not hesitate to go out of the door, save the country and try to strengthen a heart." It is said that the East is backward, and there are yellow people in the rise of Asia. Many years later, Mao Zedong made this comment to Wu Yuzhang: "It is not difficult for a person to do something good, but it is difficult to do good deeds all his life, not to do bad things, to consistently benefit the broad masses, to the youth, to the revolution consistently, and to work hard for decades as a day. "Despite hardships and dangers, to save the country and strive to be strong, Wu Yuzhang has fulfilled his promise; throughout his life, he has done good deeds and not done bad things, and Wu Yuzhang has never changed his original intention.
Guangming Daily (2021.05.24 11th edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily