On October 27, 1921, Mr. Yan Fu passed away at the residence of Langguan Lane in Fuzhou at the age of 67.
Mr. Yan Fu
Mr. Yan Fu graduated from Fujian Ship Administration School and royal naval college, and served as the general office of the Translation Bureau of Beijing Normal University and the president of Shanghai Fudan Public School. During his teaching at the Beiyang Marine Division School founded by Li Hongzhang, he trained the first batch of naval talents in modern China, translated the "Theory of Heavenly Speech" and founded the "National News Daily", systematically introduced Western democracy and science, publicized the idea of reform and reform, and introduced Western sociology, political science, political economy, philosophy, and natural science to China.
Translated by Mr. Yan Fu
National News
The translation standards of "faith, da, and ya" put forward by him have had a profound impact on the translation work of later generations. He was a very influential bourgeois Enlightenment thinker in the late Qing Dynasty and one of the "advanced Chinese" in China's modern history who searched for truth from Western countries.
According to the system of the capitalist state, he proposed that China's school education should be divided into three stages, namely primary schools, middle schools and university halls. The primary school hall admits children before the age of 16; the middle school hall admits young people who are well-versed in the 16-21 years old and have a basic foundation in primary school; and the university hall studies for three or four years, and then enters the specialized school for specialized study. At the same time, it is also necessary to send smart people who study well to study abroad in order to cultivate talents with expertise in learning.
In addition, Yan Fu also attached great importance to women's education, and he greatly appreciated the establishment of the Shanghai Jingzheng Women's School at that time. This is believed to be the beginning of Chinese women's liberation from the shackles of feudal etiquette and religion, and also the beginning of Chinese women's self-improvement. Proceeding from the purpose of saving the people and trying to survive, he believed that women's self-reliance "is the deepest foundation for the country".
He eventually became a dazzling comet in Chinese history. His tragedy was that under the special circumstances of the time, he was the only Chinese capable of understanding the vast philosophical thought of the West. But God made a big joke about China, and he stopped at the "Theory of Heavenly Speech" and the translation work based on British philosophical ideas. If he goes further to the right, he can enter Spencer's thought, which gave birth to militarism, one step further into Kant's thought, which gave birth to modern legalism, and one step to the left, he can burst into Kurogel Marx's thought, which gave birth to socialism. However, at that time, even to today's China, it was difficult to understand his profound thoughts, thus creating a situation where there was no successor, so that his stopping, so that today's China lacks a philosophical idea to guide Where China is going, and only by reading Yan Fu's tragedy can we understand China's current sadness.
Premier Li Keqiang said that every Chinese should remember Yan Fu.
Hu Shi praised "Yan Fu as the first person to introduce the ideas of the modern world."
Mao Zedong once praised him as one of "the figures of the Chinese Communist Party who searched for the truth in the West before its birth."
Liang Qichao praised Yan Fu as "a first-class figure in China in middle school and Western studies." ”
Liang Qichao
Let us remember this predecessor who fought for us