What is the "Master of All Ages"

Author: Xiong Hao, Associate Professor, Fudan University Law School, Xiong Hao

When I was a child, my parents took me to the Confucius Temple, followed the crowd through the small pond called Xuehai, crossed the archway of the Lixue Gate, and entered the Dacheng Hall. I saw a master standing in front of him, standing with his hands together, and in front of him there was a niche, and there was a tablet on the niche, and there was a line of small characters on the tablet. I looked through the crowd, and the words on it were "Master of All Ages."

When I grew up, I understood that these four words were extremely solemn for the Chinese nation, and they were used to describe those spiritual teachers who were exemplary personalities.

However, the word "mentor" is probably more or less tainted now. Anyone dares to call themselves a "mentor", teach people to sing, teach people to manage money, teach people to succeed, teach people to start a business, and everyone is called a "mentor". I always feel that in this world, in addition to teaching people to succeed and teach people to get rich, there should be another kind of true teacher, who supports the grand weight of the two words "mentor" with his quality of life, and brightens the brilliant brilliance of the two words "mentor" with his life light. If so, who is he? What does he look like?

When I was in college, I went to Anhui to teach, from Shanghai, the train to the car and then walked, and finally arrived at a primary school in Jinzhai, Anhui Province, deep in the Dabie Mountains. The next morning, when the sun had just risen, we took half a piece of chalk and began to write Chinese, math, and English on the blackboard; at the end of class, our big children and the children in the mountains played under the red flag. On the white wall of that small campus, there is a sentence that has always made me unforgettable: "Education is for the public to reach the world for the public." "We asked the principal who said this, and the principal said: Tao Xingzhi, a fellow anhui countryman.

Tao Xingzhi was born in 1891 and died in 1946 in Shexian County, Anhui Province. He studied at Nanjing Huiwen College, Jinling University, university of Illinois and Columbia University, majoring in education. Tao Xingzhi returned to China in 1917 and taught at Nanjing Higher Normal University and National Southeast University.

When a successful Chinese intellectual returned from studying abroad, Tao Xingzhi did not dream of enjoying success, but was determined to change the face of education in the motherland, which was weak and poor. At that time, Mr. Tao Xingzhi was devastated as far as his eyes could see, and the country was extremely poor to an unimaginable extent. Tao Xingzhi said that the root of this disease is education. There were 200 million illiterate people in China at that time, and 70 million children had no access to education. At that time, Tao Xingzhi, with what he had learned, could have turned around and become a man of greatness, talking and laughing among Hongru, but he firmly focused on the lowest level of China's society. Mr. Tao Xingzhi said with great excitement: This country is founded on agriculture, and people live in the countryside nine times out of ten, so China's education is education in the countryside, that is, education in the countryside, and if there is no improvement in the countryside, then the country has no hope.

He said so, and then he did it. Tao Xingzhi took off his suit, resigned from the generous treatment of his university professors, and promoted civilian education. You know, Mr. Tao Xingzhi's monthly income at that time was 400 oceans, and if he wanted to buy a courtyard house in Beijing at that time, it would only cost him 3 months' salary. And all this, Tao Xingzhi did not want to. He moved to Xiaozhuang, a highly backward and impoverished village on the outskirts of Nanjing. He met his fellow villagers, and he gradually developed a seemingly impossible wish, that is, to train 1 million rural teachers for China.

In Xiaozhuang, Mr. Tao Xingzhi led the students to cultivate themselves, work by themselves, and build their own school buildings. He said: "Only by sweating can you eat your own food, and you have to do your own thing." "Tao Xingzhi is not to cultivate intellectuals who are high up in the world, but to cultivate those real people's teachers. He invited his friends and scholars to teach in Xiaozhuang and spread new knowledge and ideas. Gradually, this highly inconspicuous university hall in Xiaozhuang grew from a few dozen to hundreds. Every day, Mr. Tao Xingzhi walks in the countryside, walks in the streets and alleys, and he wants to help the most ordinary Chinese: those elderly grandparents, those servants in rich families, those helpers of rich people's families, those street handymen, those footwork in the yards, those masters who pull foreign chartered cars... Let each of them be literate.

He said, "Come with a heart and not half a blade of grass," and he also said, "I am a commoner in China." As he worked, the bud of his dream finally broke through the ground, and we saw that the flowers were about to blossom into the trees. In Wuhan, in Chongqing, in Shanghai, in Nanjing, where there is Mr. Tao Xingzhi, there is hope for civilian education. He has been on the road for the rise of Education in China.

On July 25, 1946, Tao Xingzhi died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage in Shanghai due to overwork, at the age of 55. On December 1, Mr. Wang's coffin returned to Nanjing, and the people in Nanjing City spontaneously supported Mr. Wang's soul. They want to send this man, to send him back to his Xiaozhuang. People along the way cried all the way: You have gone, the nanny of our poor children, our friends, the mentors of the people. Bang Lian was floating, with the words "Mr. Xingzhi Eternity" written on it, and next to it were four big characters inscribed by Song Qingling himself - "Wanshi Master Table".

When we look back at today's society, the word "mentor" is getting cheaper and more utilitarian. Sometimes we even refer to mentors as bosses and as an economic relationship between employers and employees.

Therefore, when we discuss Tao Xingzhi today, we speak Tao Xingzhi today, and we remember Tao Xingzhi today, because we want to borrow that magnificent breath from Mr. Tao, let it be like fire, let it be like light, and let it re-illuminate the practical spirit of the unity of knowledge and action in the hearts of every teacher and the pure love for the motherland.

(Excerpt from a speech from "I Am an Orator")