Mr. Zhang Yuanji and he opened the road of people's wisdom with cultural publishing

Zhang Yuanji, known as Ju Sheng, is a great pioneer in the history of modern and contemporary Chinese publishing, and can be called Cai Yuanpei in the publishing industry. Zhang Cai and Cai have five similarities, one is the same township: Zhang Yuanji is a native of Haiyan, Zhejiang (born in Guangzhou), and Cai Yuanpei is a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang. The second is the same age: both were born in the sixth year of Qing Tongzhi, belonging to rabbits, Zhang Yuanji's birthday is the 28th of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, and Cai Yuanpei's birthday is the 17th of the 12th month of the lunar calendar. The third is the same year: guangxu fifteen years (1889) Zhejiang township examination, two people in the same middle school, Zhang Yuanji for the 10th place, Cai Yuanpei for the 23rd place; Guangxu sixteen years (1890) will be tested, the two are the same year; Guangxu eighteen years (1892) temple examination, the two are ranked second class, Zhang Yuanji is the 24th, Cai Yuanpei is the 34th. The fourth is colleagues: after the two of them entered the army, they were also appointed as Shu Jishi in the Hanlin Academy. Fifth, colleagues: When Peng Shu changed the law, Zhang Yuanji was summoned by the Guangxu Emperor to break the rules, so he was dismissed from his post after the failure of the change, "never used" to use it. In the spring of 1901, Zhang Yuanji was appointed acting premier (president) of Nanyang Public School, which was founded in Shanghai by Sheng Xuanhuai in the 22nd year of Guangxu (1896), and was the same as Beiyang University Hall Chinese the earliest university he founded in modern times. Zhang Yuanji invited Cai Yuanpei, who had resigned, to be the chief teacher of the special class of Nanyang Public School, and Cai Yuanpei readily agreed.

Later, Cai Yuanpei embarked on the road of education to save the country and became the greatest educator in China since the twentieth century. Zhang Yuanji embarked on the path of using cultural publishing to open up the wisdom of the people, becoming the greatest publisher in China since the twentieth century.

Mr. Wang Yunwu, a great publisher, wrote at the beginning of the article "Zhang Julao and the Commercial Press": "To comment on a person, we should grasp his central cause. ("Old Learning and New Exploration: Selected Essays on Wang Yun's Five Treatises", Xuelin Publishing House, December 1998, 1st Edition, p. 163) Especially the biographies of great celebrities, it is even more necessary to "grasp his central cause." Lu Renlong's "Chinese Publisher Zhang Yuanji" is a biography written for Zhang Julao's central cause of supporting education, "opening up the wisdom of the people", building scholarship, improving society, inheriting culture, and promoting the national essence of publishing.

One

Ji Xiaolan, a famous scholar and literary scholar of the Qing Dynasty, said in the "Compendium of the General Catalogue of the Four Libraries": "The beginning and end of a person is the genus of transmission, and the beginning and end of a matter of narration is the genus of the record." But a good biographer cannot just record "one person", "one thing", and "the beginning and end", but he must first do a good job of tailoring, because "art is cutting, that is, the work of choice" (Liang Shiqiu, "Autumn Sound, Three").

The biography of this book advocates that Mr. Yuanji's achievements are multifaceted, but the author's main purpose is not to write a comprehensive biography for the biographer, but to focus on Mr. Zhang Yuanji's publishing achievements, through examining his struggle in the publishing field and the cultivation of personality, the development of his career, and the relationship with friends and teams, to understand Mr. Zhang Yuanji's appeal and influence, as well as his role and contribution to that era and industry.

Mr. Hu Shi believes that "a small example" in the "biography of a model figure" can be used as a good educational material for young people as long as it is "properly cut and vividly described." He said he had been educated like this:

Zhu Zi remembered Tao Yuanming, only remembering that when he was a county order, he sent a long-term worker to his son, and attached a family letter, saying: "This is also the son of man, but he can be kind to him." "This few nine-word family letter, printed in my head, also has a very deep effect, so that for thirty years I did not dare to use a violent tone to treat the person who helped me to do things." (Hu Shi, "The Source of Leadership Talent")

Lu's biography is also quite famous for "Zhu Zi Ji Tao Yuanming". For example, zhang Yuanji resigned from the nanyang public school translation college, and joined the commercial press at the invitation of xia Ruifang, the founder of the Commercial Press, which is very illustrative of this.

Xia Ruifang, who was born as a word-checking worker, was quite ambitious, and he knew that if he wanted to run a commercial press, he must recruit talents, so he hired Zhang Yuanji, a scholar and famous scholar from Hanlin and full of economy, to create a great cause. Zhang Yuanji said: "Can you afford someone with a big salary like me?" Xia Ruifang said, "How much salary do you have in the Translation Academy, I will also pay as much as I want." Zhang Yuanji also said: "My generation should take it as their duty to support education. "Xia Junnuozhi." So the two sides agreed, Xia Guan printed, Zhang Guan edited the book.

"My generation should take it as our duty to support education", this is the ideal that Zhang Yuanji has pursued all his life. As early as October 1901, he said in a letter to Sheng Xuanhuai:

The politics of the state are all according to the will of the people. Today,the Chinese people are too humble, and no matter how much they take measures, it will be difficult to suddenly improve their reasoning. The purpose of national education is to learn everyone, and what is learned does not need to be advanced, but in order to know what must be known in the world today, it can stand on the earth. Otherwise, there will be those who are not slaves, and those who will not be destroyed. China claims to have 40,000 people, but its educated people are only 400,000 people, which is only one-thousandth of an ear. Moreover, these 400,000 people can only recite the Four Books and Five Classics, and can write a few sentences of eight strands and eight rhymes, and they are ignorant of what should be known in this world.

These concepts show that Zhang Yuanji was the forerunner of universal education in modern China. For universal education to unfold, it is necessary to provide good textbooks. It is precisely because of this ideal and belief that Zhang Yuanji decisively put down the shelf and face of a traditional Hanlin and joined hands with a group of workers with a pragmatic spirit to create an immortal cause.

Two

This book closely links Zhang Yuanji's life in the cultural publishing business with the entire social history, and reflects the rise and fall of society and the rise and fall of history through Zhang Yuanji's ups and downs.

Mr. Hu Shi resents the inability of Chinese literati to analyze their biographies:

We Chinese literati lack the habit of telling the truth the most. There are taboos about politics, taboos about the people of the time, and taboos about the deceased himself. In the history of the saints, what are the fallacies of keeping secrets for His Holiness, for his relatives, and for the sages, not to mention the tombs of the descendants! Therefore, the "Tan Bow" records that Kong's wife was born, that Confucius did not know his father's tomb, and that the "Analects" recorded that Confucius wanted to go to the Buddha's call, which also has the meaning of the fact of the straight book, and future generations must come up with words to wash Confucius. Later inscriptions and articles have more taboos and even more insults, only words of praise, and there is no loss of morality to remember. Occasional slander, but also out of the mouth of the enemy, such as Song Ru slandered Wang Anshi, and even faked "The Theory of Discernment", this kind of villain's behavior, the disadvantages are equivalent to concealing evil and promoting good. Therefore, thousands of years of biographical articles are not lost in praise, but in slander. (Preface to the Biography of Mr. Zhang Jizhi)

The author's comments on the successes and failures of Zhang Yuanji and Wang Yunwu, the two publishers, and the similarities and differences in styles are very representative.

From the perspective of business entrepreneurship and development, Zhang Yuanji and Wang Yunwu are two successive commanders and helmsmen; from the perspective of cultural history, both are cultural giants and publishers. But the two are similar, Zhang Yuanji is an old scholar with new ideas and a cultural person with ideals; Wang Yunwu is a cultural enterprise wizard and an unparalleled publisher. Wang Yunwu advanced his concept of enterprise management, first introduced the most popular Taylor scientific management method in the West at that time, and eagerly implemented it on his position, in order to make China's modern enterprises go further. The result was repeated failures, and in the end it was not really implemented. But his mastery of the business, especially crisis management, can be described as an amazing achievement. The times and fate have allowed him to meet the challenge of the limit several times, and with amazing perseverance and arduous struggle, the suffering enterprise has been reborn, developed and expanded, and single-handedly shaped a commercial press with a strong Wang Yunwu color, making it continue to be brilliant for decades. Wang Yunwu's publishing proposition is the inheritance and development of Zhang Yuanji. Zhang Yuanji focuses on education construction, and Wang Yunwu focuses on popularizing education, but the two are in the same vein on the spiritual level. Zhang Yuanji was committed to introducing Western learning and disseminating new knowledge to change China after feudal society, and Wang Yunwu vigorously promoted it, especially the "Universal Library" as the ultimate. Although Zhang Yuanji advocated and supported academic independence in terms of life and speech, he did not have time to truly implement it and did not achieve more remarkable results. Wang Yunwu moved with the times, not only advocating academic independence, but also really and effectively advancing. This is also the factor of the times and cultural achievements of Wang Yunwu, who has also become a cultural giant.

As a successor, Wang Yunwu's pressure and responsibility are far greater than Zhang Yuanji's, fortunately, Wang Yunwu's way of dealing with the world is also quite similar to Zhang Yuanji, the two also do not like social activities, the same lack of interest in life, completely selflessly devoted to the library and career. Wang Yunwu did not become a leader, nor did he participate in political activities or partisan affairs, and he saved the crisis again and again.

Zhang Yuanji devoted himself to publishing, embracing personal ideals, and bravely assuming the mission and responsibility of opening up the people's wisdom and inheriting culture; Wang Yunwu entered the business, first of all, personal self-confidence, relying on personal efforts, and exerting personal talents, tenaciously realizing from destruction to rejuvenation, he more bears the responsibility and mission of the enterprise.

The biggest difference between them is that Zhang Yuanji regards the Commercial Press as his life's work, while Wang Yunwu regards it as a part of his life course, and he wants to make his life have a broader dimension. Although the situation and fate made him stick to the Commercial Press three times and occupied most of his life, he took the initiative to give up another choice several times, and he could not stick to his life like Zhang Yuanji and never gave up, which is the choice of career.

Three

Lu's Zhang Yuanji is also "flowing out of the mind" every time, such as the section "Wang Yunwu of the Committee":

After the "May Thirtieth Movement", commercial workers launched several strike movements internally, and Wang Yunwu was tired of representing the museum to deal with the repeated labor disputes, so he had the idea of leaving business. In 1929, Wang Yunwu's "Universal Library" was unexpectedly successful in a huge controversy, and the complicated library and discordant environment bored him, so he resigned as the director of the compilation institute and went to the Academia Sinica as a full-time researcher. In February 1930, Bao Xianchang, the general manager of the Commercial Press, died, and Zhang Yuanji decided to let Wang Yunwu, who had recently left the company, return as general manager when no one took over the position of general manager.

Zhang Yuanji personally came forward to invite and repeatedly advised him to drive with his friends, but Wang Yunwu repeatedly refused. Zhang Yuanji still did not give up, and in the case of a thousand resignations, Wang Yunwu had a plan and unexpectedly prescribed the conditions for his appointment - going abroad to Europe and the United States for half a year, the cost was borne by the museum, the collegial system of the General Affairs Office was abolished, and the general manager's sole appointment system was changed, and Zhang Yuanji's important assistant Li Xuangong was required to resign, but he was also responsible for the agent during his inspection. Wang Yunwu believed that this design should not be accepted by Zhang Yuanji and the board of directors, and he was able to get out. Unexpectedly, Zhang Yuanji agreed on behalf of the board of directors, and Wang Yunwu was completely touched by Zhang Yuanji, so he agreed to return to business and serve as the general manager. Zhang Yuanji firmly chose Wang Yunwu, who had just left his post, as the general manager, completely out of his own judgment and cognition. This decision and arrangement of his brought a new era to business and also created the life of Wang Yunwu's legend.

Mao Kun, a great essayist of the Ming Dynasty, said in his evaluation of the "Biography of the Prince of Wei": "Xin Lingjun is a proud man in the chest of Taishi Gong, so this biography is also a proud text of Tai Shi Gong. ("History Notes", vol. 45) The same is true of Lu's biography of Zhang Yuanji: Zhang Ju is a proud person in Lu's chest, and this biography is also the author's proud text, so there is "infinite singing and sighing, infinite low wandering." (Qing Xu and Qiao "Jing Shi Discernment" History Department "Xin Ling Jun Lie Biography")

In 1980, the author was admitted to the Department of Chinese of Sichuan University under the supervision of mr. Yang Mingzhao, a famous philologist. In 1987, he was transferred to Zhonghua Bookstore as an editor, and in 1998, he began to engage in private cultural publishing. In 2003, the photocopy of the Wenjinge Siku Quanshu, which was planned and invested by the author, was published, completing Zhang Julao's unfinished business before his death.

Since 2010, the author has invested in the establishment of a number of cultural companies such as Shangyin Wenjin Culture (Beijing) Company, The Nanjing Branch of the Commercial Press, and the Huamin Modern Charity Research Institute, and published a number of academic and cultural series of works and ancient book collation series books such as "True Truth School Notes", "Three Dynasties of the Three Dynasties of the Qin and Han Dynasties", and "Thirteen Commentaries on the Thirteen Classics". It should be most appropriate for such a scholar publisher to write a published biography of Zhang Julao.

The author has a heart of admiration and admiration for Zhang Julao, which can be described as "looking up to Mi Gao, drilling Mi Jian; Looking at the front, neglecting in the back", "Wanting to stop" (Analects of Zihan Ninth). As he says in the epilogue of this biography:

Recently, scholars of publishing culture have issued a sigh that "Zhang Yuanji cannot be traced" and "Zhang Yuanji cannot be learned". After writing this manuscript, the author, as a person who has also been engaged in publishing for 30 years and studied Zhang Yuanji, took "Tribute to the Sage of Culture" as the conclusion of the book.

At that time, Confucius asked his students to "talk to each other." Gong Xi Chi replied, "If you can't do it, you're willing to learn it." The affairs of the Jongmyo Temple, such as the same meeting, Duan Zhangfu, may be a small phase. After the other students dispersed, Confucius's gaozu once asked Confucius, "Only Chi is not with the state." "Is what Gong Xi Chi said also an aspirant state?" Confucius said, "If the temples and temples are together, why not the princes?" Red is also small, which can be bigger? "What is it that holds a sacrifice ceremony in the temple to meet people, not a prince of the kingdom?" Gong Xi Chi said that his ambition is to do some small things such as emcee, so who can do big things? The author said that as a learner, he paid tribute to Zhang Julao, a "cultural sage", and also had the humility of Gongxi Chi who was "not able to know, willing to learn".