Since Lin Zixuan came to Beiping, the birthplace of new literature, he has come into contact with all kinds of people in the Beiping literary circle, and he has been deeply touched.

Unlike Shanghai, the clash of cultures is more intense.

There are conservatives who adhere to traditional culture, radicals who advocate total westernization, bourgeois reformists, proletarian revolutionaries, and even anarchist liberals.

Each of them thinks that they are right, and that their own ideas can save China, and they attack and debate each other.

In February 1923, Zhang Junmai delivered a speech on "Outlook on Life" at Tsinghua University, thus setting off a great debate between science and metaphysics.

This eventually led to a split in the Chinese intellectual world, giving rise to three factions.

The metaphysical school headed by Liang Qichao and Zhang Junmao, the scientific school headed by Hu Shi, and the materialist school headed by Chen Duxiu.

Traditional Chinese Philosophy, Western Social Sciences, Materialism......

Which one can save China?

Tagore's promotion of oriental culture, in the eyes of the other two factions, is undoubtedly in favor of metaphysics, which is why Chen Duxiu attacked Tagore, for Tagore, I am afraid that he did not know that there was such a controversy in the Chinese intellectual circles.

Hu Shi is very calm, he belongs to the school of science, but he does not agree with Chen Duxiu's approach.

There is no need to implicate an unwitting foreign poet in the debate within the Chinese cultural circles, which is rude.

Rabindranath Tagore has said on different occasions that he loves China and speaks for China, and that he should not be treated like this.

Lin Zixuan did not approve of this approach, but he was more concerned with another idea in Beiping, that is, a comprehensive critique of traditional Chinese culture.

Many scholars believe that everything in the West is good. Everything in China is bad and should be criticized in its entirety.

They criticized Confucius. Criticizing Confucianism, he regarded ancient Chinese philosophy as idealism. It is the dregs of feudalism that can be completely negated, so that the mind can be emancipated and the Chinese ideological circles and society can be reborn.

Some scholars have even argued that in order to abolish Sinology, it is necessary to abolish Chinese characters first.

These are all scholars who advocate new culture, and Lin Zixuan understands that they have to be so radical in order to fight against the old forces for the development of the new culture, and maybe they themselves are not so rejecting traditional culture.

After all, most of this group of scholars were born in the last years of the Qing Dynasty. Received a private school education.

But he still felt that the new culture was too radical and fanatical.

Lin Zixuan, who came from later generations, knew that it was precisely because of the development of new culture that it led to the decline of traditional Chinese culture, and even if classical Chinese appeared in the Chinese textbooks of later generations, it would be difficult to make up for the fault of traditional Chinese culture for decades.

He felt that he should say something, even if it was out of place.

The advantage of this era is that there is more freedom of speech, no one will review your speech before your speech, and no one will dictate the topic of your speech. Lin Zixuan didn't bring a manuscript, he knew what he was going to say.

On May 1, 1924, Tagore gave a speech at Tsinghua University, and Lin Zixuan came to Peking University.

His fame cannot be compared to that of Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore's speech was attended by thousands of people, and his audience was hundreds, and it is said that many Peking University students went to Tsinghua University to listen to Tagore's speech.

Hu Shi is the dean of liberal arts at Peking University. Responsible for introducing Lin Zixuan.

Lin Zixuan has lectured at the university and is very accustomed to this kind of occasion. Below are hundreds of students, with a few female students in front.

"Before starting today's presentation. Let me start with a little story. Lin Zixuan stood on the stage and said in a deep voice, "Some of you may have seen this story, it is called "The Last Lesson", which is a short story written by the French writer Alphonse Dude. ”

Then, Lin Zixuan began to talk about "The Last Lesson".

This novel is from Dude's collection of short stories, The Tales of the Moon, which was published in 1873 in 1873 in a collection of short stories published in 1873.

It mainly writes about what the author saw and heard before and after the Franco-Prussian War, mostly to express patriotic feelings or expose and satirize social evils.

The Last Lesson was translated into Chinese in 1912.

In 1871, the Franco-Prussian War ended with a crushing defeat for the French.

This short story is about a small school in Alsace that had fallen and was forced to switch to German.

By depicting the scene of the last French class, the image of the primary school student Franz Jr. and the French teacher Mr. Hammel is portrayed, reflecting the deep patriotic feelings of the French people.

"French Chinese is the most beautiful language in the world."

This is Lin Zixuan's deepest touching sentence, every nation has its own cultural foundation, abandoning its own traditional culture, abandoning its own language, this is destroying the foundation of a nation's civilization.

In Shanghai, Western missionaries established schools and churches.

They taught English in schools, promoted Western etiquette, and spread the teachings of Christianity, which was an invasion of Western culture, and the wealthy people in Shanghai took it as a fashion trend.

In Hongkou District, a public concession, the Japanese established schools and taught in Japanese, and many Chinese living in Hongkou District took pride in sending their children to Japanese schools.

This is not uncommon in major cities across the country, and this is the assimilation of culture.

And the Chinese are very cooperative in criticizing their own traditional culture and vigorously advocating Western culture, which is the sadness of the whole era.

Although Lin Zixuan understood their approach, he had to say something.

The new culture should not be like this, he is not opposed to learning Western culture, but by no means at the expense of Chinese traditional culture, that is to cut off the foundation.

"I thought Chinese was the most beautiful language in the world." After telling the story, Lin Zixuan said solemnly, "We have not yet reached the point where we are forced to change to other languages, we can still learn and communicate in Chinese, this is our luck, worth cherishing, no matter what time we should not forget this." ”

The students below were surprised and didn't understand why Lin Zixuan said this.

Some of them came to listen to Lin Zixuan talk about new poetry, and some were interested in Lin Zixuan personally, they thought that Lin Zixuan should talk about something related to new literature, but they didn't expect to talk about this.

"I'm going to talk about my thoughts on the new culture." Lin Zixuan ignored the students' confusion and continued.

His view is to learn from Western culture selectively while inheriting traditional culture.

Neither should give up, and it is necessary to have the cultural roots of its own nation, and at the same time to keep an open mind to accept new things from the West.

This kind of formulation is obviously not flattering, it offends both conservatives and radicals, and it will be regarded as a wall-riding faction, trying to please both sides, and the result is that it will offend both sides.

Before the speech, Lin Zixuan knew that there would be this result, and no one had walked this road.

But he felt that he was right, and this was also proved to be true in later generations, so he did not hesitate to cool down the radicals of the new culture and leave a little vitality to the traditional culture.

As long as someone listens to him and agrees with his proposition, it is not in vain.

He has no intention of becoming a mentor to his students anyway, and history will eventually prove who is right and who is wrong. (To be continued.) )