Yue Lu Juzi | Reminiscent of Huang Shiheng, the old president of Hunan University

(Huang Shiheng, who was the head of the Hunan Provincial Department of Education in 1927)

Mr. Huang Shiheng (1889-1978) was an outstanding educator in Hunan Province during the Republic of China period, who made great contributions to higher education, secondary education and civilian education in Hunan Province, and was appointed as the deputy director of the Hunan Provincial Museum of Literature and History in his later years, which was included in the "Changsha Celebrities" album published in 1999.

Adolescence of suffering

Huang Shiheng, zi jianping, generation name Ti Kai, Hunan Province, Chenxian Yongfeng Township Changchong Village, born in Shuxiang Mendi, family origins, young Chengting training, his uncle Chun Yuan was one of the last qing dynasty selected young scholars, his father Ru Hu was a former Qing Xiucai, to teach private school for a living, died young, the family road fell in the middle, his brother Ti Gui accepted the new trend of thought earlier, graduated from the Yuelu Academy Higher School at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and participated in the Xinhai Revolution. Due to his poor family, relying on his mother's diligence and thriftiness in running the family, with hardships and hardships, his adolescence coincided with the turbulent and difficult autumn of the country (the defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War, the collapse of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the change of family, life was very difficult, but under the subtle influence of good "family style tutoring", the huge tribulations did not crush him, but inspired and exercised the spirit of hard work, perseverance and unswerving will to be poor.

In the rich collection of books in the big family, in addition to the subset of jingshi, he also extensively dabbled in the "Collected Writings of the Drinking Ice Room", "The Family Book of Zeng Guofan", "Zhu Zi Family Training", "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and "Chuanshan Testament", etc., and followed and imitated in all aspects of life, such as life, academic and academic thought, and even life style. The most profound influence on his life was Wang Fuzhi (Mr. Funayama), who was full of patriotism and materialism, and he greatly admired "those who know and those who do good deeds; Those who do not know as merit also. The effect of doing can be known, and the effect of knowing that it is not possible to do is also. (See Shang Shu Cited Righteousness) Thus realizes that knowledge and action are mutually useful, but fundamental to action. Reflected in his life's actions, he focused on physical practice and practical things. It is no coincidence that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, he also served as the principal of Hengyang Private Chuanshan Middle School for a time, which is a later story.

Before studying abroad, with the financial support of his brother, he studied at Hunan Provincial No. 1 Middle School (now Changsha No. 1 Middle School) and Guangyi Middle School (now the Affiliated Middle School of Hunan Normal University).

Being abroad is concerned about the motherland

In 1913, he was admitted to study in the United States at public expense, and successively obtained a bachelor's degree in arts from Iowa University and a master's degree in history and political science from Columbia University. At this time, he had the conditions to integrate Chinese and Western learning into one to carefully observe how people behave, to govern and deal with the world, to learn from the good and to learn from the strengths of others, there are successful experiences for reference, there are also lessons of failure that deserve to be taken as a warning, and so on are learned from books. Thus laying a solid foundation for engaging in educational administrative work after returning to China.

Later in his stay in the United States, he published an article entitled "On the Main Causes of Frequent Civil Unrest in China" in the quarterly newspaper of students studying in the United States, of which alumnus Mr. Hu Shi was the editor-in-chief, in the first issue of the Quarterly Bulletin of Students Studying in the United States, in which he took a clear-cut stand against Yuan Shikai's crime of stealing the country and severely condemned the beiyang warlords' calamity to the country and the people. Subsequently, he published the article "Solving the Problem of Chinese" in the fourth issue of the column in 1918 and the first issue of 1919, which was proved to be the earliest literature in Chinese academic circles to discuss population issues. After returning to China in the summer of 1920, in August he was invited by the Hunan Provincial Federation of Students (Mao Zedong, Li Zhenping, Zhang Wei and others had all held leading positions in it) to make a more popular report on the "population problem" (the original report was serialized in the Hunan Ta Kung Pao on August 31, 1999 and September 1, 2019).

After graduating from Columbia University, in 1919, he was hired as the chief writer of the New York "Minqi Newspaper", and still vigorously advocated national integrity, opposed racial discrimination, opposed the encroachment and plundering of China by the Paris Peace Conference and various subsequent treaties and agreements, and wrote some influential articles, such as "Reprimanding the United States for Defending Japan's Aggression against China's Jiaozhou", "Opposing the 'Lansing Ishii Agreement'", and "Reprimanding Lu Rongting for Betraying the Country and Seeking Glory".

Participated in the creation of Hunan University

After returning to China in 1920, he successively served as a professor and head of the Department of Literature and History of Chengdu Higher Education College in Sichuan, a professor at Shanghai Southern University, and a professor and president of Hunan Provincial Commercial College. In November 1925 and January 1926, on the basis of the merger of hunan provincial business colleges, law colleges and technical colleges, the Preparatory Office of Hunan University and the Administrative Committee of Hunan University were successively established, and he was appointed as one of the eight preparatory committees and one of the ten administrative members, so he was one of the direct founders of Hunan University, and as the last president of Hunan Public Commercial College (1924-1926), he brought the school into Hunan University in its entirety. After the formal establishment of Hunan University in 1926, there were four departments of law, business science and engineering, and he still served as a professor and concurrently served as the chief of business. On October 6, 2011, the centenary of business education was celebrated, and the School of Business Administration of Hunan University held a grand celebration of "Millennium School, Centennial Business School", and a bust commemorating the old president Mr. Huang Shiheng was erected in the hall of the college.

Due to his extensive involvement in various disciplines during his stay in the United States, and his active participation in various activities (including political and public welfare) inside and outside the university, he traveled extensively. Among his peers who returned from studying abroad, they showed more outstanding administrative talents, so even in the absence of any political background, they were pushed to the leadership position of education administration, which can also be said to be an "eclectic demotion" move in the specific environment at that time.

Appointed by the National Government of Wuhan in July 1927, he first served as the director of the Department of Education of Hunan Province, due to the failure of the Great Revolution at that time, the school was closed, in order to properly solve the livelihood problems of teachers and staff, he tried to approve and support the opening of remedial schools at all levels. After serving for half a year, he resigned indignantly due to the sinister and difficult career. In February 1929, when the educational circles in Hunan were leaderless, he was again invited to serve as the director of the Provincial Department of Education in February 1929, and during his tenure, he carried out all-round and large-scale reform of the educational work in Hunan Province, and achieved remarkable results.

In 1934, the Changsha "Ta Kung Pao" published an article on Hunan education administration for thirty years by Zhou Tianyang (former inspector of the Department of Education of Hunan Province) pointed out: "He (Director Huang Shiheng) has been in office for three years, and he has made many improvements to the province's education, such as enriching Hunan University, sorting out vocational education, restoring zhongshan libraries, preparing for the establishment of county people's libraries, formulating methods for selecting international students, convening a provincial school principal meeting, holding a provincial education administrative conference, building a public stadium, and preparing for the provincial education achievement exhibition. As for the absolute openness of finances and the doctrine of employing talents, this is especially a sense of retrospection in the educational circles. "

A few of them are described below:

"Enriching Hunan University" mainly refers to strengthening the strength of the school and improving its overall level, which stems from the fact that in July and August 1929, the National Government successively promulgated the "University Organization Law" and the "University Regulations", stipulating that there must be more than 3 colleges to be called "universities", and there must be one of science, engineering, agriculture and medicine, otherwise it can only be called "colleges". In February 1930, Hunan University changed the original "department" to "college" and had 10 departments under it, which fully met the standards in this regard. However, at the subsequent national education work conference, the Ministry of Education proposed to downgrade Hunan University on the grounds that its monthly funding was only more than 10,000 yuan. At that time, he attended the meeting as the director of the Department of Education of Hunan Province, and argued at the meeting, pointing out that "Hunan Province has always paid attention to efficiency and done larger undertakings with less money." (See the November 25, 1992 issue of the 4th edition of the "Hunan University" journal published Li Dacong's article "The Storm of Changing the School into a College", which finally rejected the proposal of the Ministry of Education, enabling Hunan University to justifiably rank among the national universities and flourish, which is a victory achieved by him who is well versed in the principle of "efficiency" in scientific management, and also ensures the overall result of the 30 years of hard work of Hunan education circles through the long-term convergence of various schools such as law, commerce, industry, excellent teachers, and higher schools.)

"Formulating Methods for Selecting International Students by Examination", as soon as he took over as Director of the Department of Education in 1929, he insisted on formulating methods for selecting international students on the principle of openness, fairness, and fairness, so that the talents that could be created could stand out, and the teaching style, study style, and educational administrative discipline were strictly rectified. It was in this year that Germany gave 2 postgraduate scholarships in Hunan Province, and after strict examination, two secondary school teachers He Fengshan (1901-1997) and Li Da (1905-1998) who were selected to study at the University of Munich in Germany, both became great instruments and won high international honors for the Chinese. He Fengshan during his tenure as consul general in Vienna (1938-1940), he risked issuing visas to China for thousands of Jews, saving their lives, this righteous deed was obliterated for decades, He died before being examined by American historians, in early 2001, the Israeli government posthumously awarded him the title of "International Righteous Man", and was praised by the world's major media as "China's Schindler". Li Da has been teaching at foreign universities for a long time, and in the 1960s, he served as the director of the scientific research department of the United States General Administration of Space (NASA), participated in the research of the Apollo moon landing program, and solved the problem of the flow of liquid fuel in the spacecraft in a weightless state and other major problems.

On the one hand, it has stopped the unhealthy trend of appointing people but being close to others, and on the other hand, it has greatly aroused the enthusiasm of real talents to contribute to the country and the nation. During his second term as director of the Department of Education, when the military was in charge, he was afraid that the power of school education would be manipulated by the military, and in 1930, in the selection of the principal of the provincial Second Girls' High School, Corporal Zeng Lixian and Sangu Maolu urged Ms. Zeng Baosun ,the founder of Changsha Yifang Girls' School and the great-granddaughter of Zeng Guofan) to run the school. On page 191 of Zeng Baosun's Memoirs (published by Yuelu Book Publishing House in August 1986), it is mentioned: "... Director Huang Shiheng personally came to ask me to say: 'There are already many letters of recommendation for military personnel, and if the education department cannot employ people autonomously, then Hunan education will be finished, so we must ask Mr. Huang to help protect the right of the education department to employ people, as long as I put forward mr. name, others will have nothing to say." I saw that Director Huang said so earnestly, and had to agree. In 1931, after Zeng Baosun resigned as the principal of the Second Middle School after serving for one year, Mr. Huang Shiheng learned that Wu Jian, who graduated from Beijing Normal University, had 13 years of primary school teaching experience before entering the university, and after graduating from college, Hui Xiang served as the intern director of the Second Middle School for many years. Wu Jian later recalled in the article "Hunan Provincial No. 2 Middle School after the Ma-Ri Incident" (in "Hunan Literature and History Materials Anthology No. 20", published by Hunan People's Publishing House in January 1986): "Director Huang Shiheng did not want the principals to come close to him often, but only hoped that they would concentrate on running the school well. He did not introduce the faculty to the principals, and even the chief of the secretarial section in the hall, and even the clerks and clerks, etc., all undertook his will, and there was never a matter of introducing people; He was always concerned about the principal he proposed, whether he was in office or not. For example, in the spring of 1932, when the semester had not yet begun, when I was organizing the staff of the Second Middle School, he personally came to the school and said to me with concern: 'I heard that you will hire the Chinese language teacher who has been dismissed from his post during the term of office of the former principal, and you will dismiss Li Xiaonian, who is highly respected by the young and virtuous people.' I think this is not good for your future, special trip to tell you. I said, 'Rest assured, I didn't intend to do this, it was deliberately rumored and slandered.' Thank you for your concern. At this time, he was no longer in the Education Department, and he could still care for me, and I was very grateful to him. ”

In the official circles of the old society, he always analyzed life with the cold gaze of "everyone is drunk and I am awake alone", proud of the powerful, not only superior, but always maintained the high integrity of traditional knowledge elements and indifferent to Mingzhi. In the winter of 1929, the Central Party Ministry of the Kuomintang in Nanjing appointed him a member of the Steering Committee of the Party Department of Hunan Province, but he resigned three times and insisted on not taking office. Later, the Hunan Provincial Party Department Steering Committee repeatedly urged him to take office, but he still insisted on not going. Because of this, he was pushed out of his career, and he often prided himself on "not bending his waist for five buckets of rice". He was loyal to his duties, adhered to principles, had a clear conscience, was just and upright, and enjoyed a high prestige in the educational circles in Hunan at that time. However, because he was not tolerant of the issues of striving for educational independence and appointing talents, after serving as the director of education for three years for the second time, he finally "stayed when he was in harmony, and went if he did not agree," and resigned in anger and still returned to Huda to teach.

Great importance is attached to basic education

He is also extremely concerned about the quality of the whole people and basic education. For the civilian education movement carried out by Mr. Zhou Fang (Zi Jing'an), a famous civilian education in Hunan Province (1892-1979), he spared no effort to support, care and participate in the education movement from beginning to end (in 1931, he and Zhou were the founders of Hunan Private Fenglin Middle School), and this positive act of opening up the people's wisdom was highly praised by the famous educator Mr. Tao Xingzhi and was praised as the crown of civilian education in the country. Mr. Zhou Fang believes that "big things are easy to do, and people are in contention; Small things are difficult and ignored! Let the big one be easy, and the small one be difficult, nature is 'indistinguishable from man' and 'indisputable from the world', and your energy can be used to 'right things', not to waste 'on people'!". On December 10, 1949, Huang Lao wrote an article entitled "The Past and Future of the Fenglin School of Experimental Three Modernization Education", which pointed out: "And those who are most impressed by his proposition of 'finding difficult things to do, and never returning, through thousands of difficulties, without being discouraged, this is not a person with great wisdom and great determination." (See "Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of Mr. Zhou Fang, a civilian educator", compiled by the Hunan Provincial Research Museum of Literature and History in October 1993, p.151)

Because he had recognized the importance of basic education at an early age, although he had been teaching at universities for a long time, he had always attached great importance to secondary education in Hunan Province since he became the director of the provincial education department, and gave equal care and support to the establishment and development of public and private middle schools within the scope of his ability. After the "July 7" incident in 1937, at the end of the year, he and his family left Changsha to take refuge in his hometown in Shonan, and from 1940 to 1942, he was gladly hired as the principal of Hengyang Private Chuanshan Middle School. All were destroyed in the Holocaust. In order to develop secondary education in his hometown of Chenxian County, in 1942 he also vigorously supported the private suitable for the existence of the middle school, was hired as the chairman of the school, at the beginning of the opening of only junior high school classes, in 1947 added high school classes, the school's heyday, the number of students nearly a thousand, about 90 teachers. Through the investigation of the Shonan region during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he believed that there were already many ordinary middle schools in Hunan Province at that time, but there were only a lack of agricultural schools, only Changsha City had two "Xiuye" high farmers and "Kaiwu" primary farmers, and there was not a single agricultural school in the half of Shonan Province. At his initiative, after the Hunan Provincial Government filed for the record, in January 1949, the Hunan Provincial Private Yixiang Agricultural Vocational School was officially established in Liangtian Town, Chenxian County.

Gongcheng did not live to let Xian resign

At the beginning of 1936, he was appointed president of Hunan University, and it was in the summer of that year that he established the "Hunan University Graduation Examination Committee" as the last hurdle for vigorously grasping the style of study and strictly entering and leaving, and he served as the chairman, the director of the Department of Education, and a number of old principals, including 7 members of the external committee, to show the authority of the committee, which not only ensured the quality of Huda graduates, but also became an important indicator of the educational level of Huda university from provincial to national, which can be said to be another major stroke of his scientific management. Due to the strong teaching force of Hunan University at that time, with the largest library in central China and South China, laboratory instruments and equipment with a certain scale, teaching quality for the "national provincial university crown", has the basic conditions for reforming the country, he took over the school seal, immediately convened a meeting of heads of state at all levels, decided to elect 4 representatives of each college (dean, department head, professor representative and student representative), on March 25, he presided over the joint meeting, unanimously passed the request to change the country, and went to the provincial government on the 28th to petition to create a momentum. Before the summer vacation, the National Movement Promotion Association of Hunan University was established. At the end of the year, Zhu Jingnong, director of the Provincial Department of Education, was urged to go to Nanjing to petition together with representatives of teachers and students of Hunan University as a representative of the provincial government. When passing through Wuhan, professors Ren Kainan, Yang Duanliu and Pi Zongshi, former Hunan Provincial Business Colleges and Hunan Universities, expressed their support and jointly wrote to Minister of Education Wang Shijie to exert influence. At this critical moment, he offered to resign and ask the provincial government to hire Mr. Pi Zongshi (1887-1967) to succeed him as principal, and petitioned the National Government to take up his post. This is because Pi Zongshi and Wang Shijie were classmates when they stayed in Britain, and Pi's condition was: "Huda must be changed to a national university before I can become the principal." A year later, the Nationalist government finally made a decision, and in July 1937, the Ministry of Education officially notified Hunan University to be changed to the state, so that the name of Huda was truly deserved, and it smoothly entered the ranks of national universities. His achievements are not in residence, high and bright, showing the personality charm of the great educator, which is admirable.

Later years

Born in the war-torn years, Huang Lao was a maverick under the dangerous and vicious waves of old China, suffered a lot of troubles, witnessed the dark corruption of the old society, but could not turn the tide of the tide. The tremendous changes in the social atmosphere in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China gave him great encouragement, prompting him to actively and conscientiously participate in political studies, absorb new knowledge with hunger and thirst, and work until 1953, when the faculties and departments of the Central and Southern Districts were adjusted and Huda was tragically dissolved.

After that, he was successively hired as a member of the Central and Southern Military and Political Committee, a special representative of the National People's Congress, a deputy to the Provincial People's Congress, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

In the summer of 1978, President Huang Lao passed away at the age of 90, and the Hunan Provincial People's Government, the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Hunan University and other units held a solemn memorial service. Hunan University, which has thrived on the basis of the pioneering work of the ancestors, has developed more and more rapidly and is thriving, and the old president will be very pleased to know under the Nine Springs.

(This article is reproduced from New Hunan)