Well, the deep-seated fundamental reasons why some contemporary intellectuals miss the Republic of China have been preliminarily described in the previous part. So, is there a certain reasonableness to their demands for improving their own economic treatment?

…… This one...... How to say that? There should be absolutely nothing wrong with respecting intellectuals.

But one thing to be clear about is what kind of intellectuals should we respect?

In other words, what kind of intellectuals can truly create wealth and value for our society?

In recent years, there is a very fashionable term in the domestic academic circles, called "Republic of China Fan". Roughly speaking, although the era of the Republic of China was a turbulent and turbulent era of social and political affairs, it was a vigorous and prosperous era of humanistic spirit -- masters and elites emerged, all of whom had unique personality charm, free lifestyle and high spiritual temperament.

In short, the spirit of scholars and the broad mind of "taking the world as one's own responsibility" from the Qing Dynasty to the entire ancient China still have a legacy in the education and academic circles of the Republic of China. It is a pity that with the increasing impetuosity of the current social atmosphere, there is almost no such lofty and extraordinary atmosphere in today's universities in our country. Therefore, in the past, those "Republic of China styles" that were full of the style of classical Chinese scholars and combined with the progressive ideas of the modern West are really classic objects that modern people with empty beliefs should admire and learn from!

Well, this argument cannot be said to be unreasonable. But I don't know if you have noticed a little bit, these "very stylish" "elites of the Republic of China", such as Zhang Taiyan, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Yinke, Liang Shuming, Mei Lanfang, Xu Zhimo, Wen Yiduo, Lu Xun, Zhang Ailing, Liang Qichao...... Although it is true that their reputation is thunderous, and they are admired and awe-inspired, they are basically cultural people engaged in social sciences, and they study and research education, literature, foreign languages, history, philosophy, art, and so on, but it is difficult to find any talents in engineering and science.

And the older generation of scientists we are more familiar with, such as Qian Xuesen, Li Siguang, Zhu Kezhen, and so on, almost all came back from studying abroad, because there were no conditions for cultivating and supporting outstanding scientists in China, and there was no very special "style" in the Republic of China period -- this is a bit strange, with the generous treatment of professors in the era of Beiyang warlords, and the sufficient funds of universities, could not they afford to build a laboratory? You know, the cost of scientific research in the early 20th century was far less than it was later.

The truth of the matter is this: in the early Republic of China, during the era of the Beiyang warlords, the proportion of liberal arts students and science students in Chinese universities was extremely unbalanced - liberal arts students who studied grammar and art were the only ones, reaching more than 90% of the total number of students!

On the other hand, there are very few students studying engineering and agriculture at universities, not even in business, and very few professors who teach these courses. Only medicine is slightly stronger, but it is also too good to be very good.

Alas, in those universities of BJ back then, the first was liberal arts, the second was liberal arts, and the third was liberal arts!

In addition to medicine and foreign languages, if you want to learn a little practical and advanced jishu, you can only study abroad. Moreover, after completing their studies, it is difficult for them to return to China to find a job in their major, so they can only stay overseas to earn a living -- the industry of old China is so backward that the engineers and scientists who return from overseas are simply useless unless they set up their own factories and start their own businesses.

In short, in the universities of the early Republic of China, the situation of science is really called a tragedy! It is said that there are more girls who study politics than there are people who study engineering jishu! Even at Tsinghua University, which was later known as the "No. 1 in science", the teaching content at that time was still dominated by politics and law, literature and theology, and the number of science graduates never exceeded 100 every year! …,

God, in the old China of the Republic of China, it was clear that what was most lacking was modern industry and agriculture, and the most backward was modern science, but it only cultivated so few science college students, and many of the best talents had to immigrate abroad, what use was it for a large country with a population of hundreds of millions! If the industry of the Republic of China can develop, then there is a ghost!

So, in the era of the Republic of China, how would Weishenme be so unscientific? Obviously, the country is completely backward in industry and science and technology, and it is in urgent need of scientific talents to build a modern industry. However, in universities, funding is extremely skewed towards liberal arts, but science and engineering are not paid much attention to?

There are many reasons why university education in the Republic of China has such a grotesque situation.

As a matter of fact, after the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement, the concepts of democracy and science have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the Chinese intellectuals, and there has always been a strong demand in society for the development of practical science and the cultivation of practical talents.

But the problem was that China's economy was backward at that time, and there was a shortage of talents, especially those who studied natural sciences. In addition, liberal arts universities can be opened as long as they have a library and classrooms, and if they have a full pool of teachers. However, science and engineering universities have to purchase a large number of expensive teaching equipment (which cannot be produced domestically, and imports require sky-high prices), and the requirements for education funds are higher, and it is extremely difficult to hire teachers.

Therefore, at that time, it was very difficult to establish a comprehensive university with both liberal arts and science and engineering. As a result, many scholars have had to lower the standards for setting up universities and start with less expensive liberal arts colleges.

The objective difficulty of establishing an engineering university in China has been mentioned above, and the other most important factor is the lack of attention to the subjective aspect.

-- Traditionally, China has been a country ruled by civilian officials. And the so-called civil officials are, in many cases, another face of cultural people. In the ancient history of our country, those well-known literati, whether they were prominent or not, were always inextricably linked to the ruling class.

Therefore, higher education under the feudal imperial examination system, such as "Guozijian" and "Taixue", was actually a specialized training institution for senior bureaucrats. The same is true of the predecessor of Peking University, "Beijing Normal University Hall". If you have to make an analogy, it is basically equivalent to today's party school. Therefore, it is natural to pay more attention to the education of traditional literature, politics, law, finance, and even traditional etiquette and morality, and at most add some "new" content such as foreign languages, international politics, and shijie history, which is already in line with the trend of the times.

At that time, most of the students wanted to go to university, and the ultimate goal was similar to that of the scholars in the feudal society in the past, that is, to become officials, so naturally they had to study law and administration, and not many people were willing to study science that had nothing to do with their careers.

As for Western-run universities in China, the initial goal was to cultivate a group of indigenous Chinese political elites close to the West. During the Republican era, thousands or even thousands of college students graduated from universities founded in China by Anglo-American churches and non-governmental educational institutions, and then entered the government or industrial and commercial fields, and their political views naturally tended to be pro-American and pro-British.

In order to meet this demand, the curricula of these schools were also dominated by the liberal arts and theology—the former to infiltrate the superstructure, the latter to spread influence to the lower classes—and at most medical courses to facilitate the spread of medical missionaries among the poor, but were reluctant to produce industrial and scientific talents for China in order to create competitors for their own enterprises in the Chinese market.

The only exception was Germany, perhaps because the Germans were more realistic, and after occupying Qingdao, they opened a polytechnic in Asia at that time, the Dehua University, in 1909. And with German rigor, it has cultivated a group of quite excellent engineering personnel for China. Unfortunately, the school only lasted for five years before it disappeared with the Japanese occupation of Qingdao in 1914. …,

Foreigners running schools in China have their own ulterior motives. And those Chinese who presided over university education in the early years of the Republic of China, despite the fierce bombardment of Western ships and cannons, have understood the importance of Western science. However, due to the concept of traditional scholars, there is still some resistance to these "strange tricks", and they are not very willing to put them on the university campus equivalent to "Guozijian".

-- Traditionally, Chinese literati read the books of sages and sages, full of benevolence, righteousness and morality, and claimed to regard the world as their own responsibility, but in fact they were far from the actual social production, preferring to do learning in the study, but extremely despised manual labor and practical construction. Even in the era after the founding of the People's Republic of China, these traditional literati still regarded the "combination of two participations, one reform and three combinations" as great persecution, not to mention the period of the Republic of China.

For example, Mr. Cai Yuanpei, a leading educator in the Republic of China, believed in the early days that universities should not offer majors, as long as there were liberal arts, medicine and art content, it was enough. As for the cultivation of scientific talents such as science and engineering, it should be undertaken by specialized vocational schools.

His views cannot be said to be entirely wrong, after all, this has been done in modern Germany (and has since changed). But the problem is that the very limited education funds allocated by the Beiyang government at that time were almost all given to the masters who played the pen to study traditional Chinese culture, and by the way, to teach the future officials and masters all kinds of traditional culture, and there was really no money to run all kinds of science vocational schools.

In the same way, in the early years of the Republic of China, the reason why those Beiyang warlords treated the teachers and students on the university campuses very politely was not because they were progressive in their thinking and attached importance to education, but on the contrary, in their minds, they still continued the old thinking of the Qing Dynasty in the past, and generally regarded those universities in BJ City as the reserve of high-level bureaucrats such as "Taixue" and "Guozijian", and naturally they had to be treated well and have a polite attitude.

-- In the era of China's feudal dynasties, those scholars, especially those scholars with great fame, often did some collective petitions or collective protests, just like the college students during the Republic of China, and even scolded the emperor, which is very similar to the demonstrations in modern Western countries. For example, Kang Youwei, a GD lifter, engaged in "writing on the bus" during the First Sino-Japanese War, and once pulled thousands of people who went to Beijing to take the exam to act together.

And the new force of these future bureaucratic members, no matter how authoritarian and corrupt the imperial court, always showed extraordinary tolerance, and generally sent important ministers to patiently persuade them, at most to punish a few leading people, and almost never had the crazy act of sealing up the national prison and putting all the teachers and students in prison -- because these people were the future court officials, and if they were overly offended, wouldn't they have to worry about being settled in the future?

On the contrary, if the troublemakers are not scholars with special status, but ordinary grass people...... Then it's usually bloody repression that is not negotiable!

Therefore, in the turbulent years of the early years of the Republic of China, in the face of illiterate and out-of-school children everywhere, and a blank national industry, these masters, who were full of "Republic of China style", squandered the little education funds they had with peace of mind, leisurely studied history, philosophy, calligraphy and painting art and other "traditional Chinese studies" that lacked practical significance, or translated some Western literary masterpieces, and at the same time turned a blind eye to the backward and ignorant people, and also regarded themselves as the pillars of the country and the backbone of society...... Should this mean that they have no conscience? Or are they mindless?

Some people see the absurdity of this phenomenon, such as Lu Xun, who thinks that it is a shame for intellectuals who do not produce to be rich alone; Some people, however, think that this is the treatment that intellectuals should enjoy -- without the suffering of the people, how can there be the pleasure of scholars? For example, Hu Shi. …,

In the past, we thought Lu Xun was right. Now there are more and more people advocating Hu Shi's theory.

You might as well imagine here that in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, when everything was in ruins, our party refused to spend money on modernization and build its own independent industrial system, but instead organized a large number of masters and archaeologists of Chinese culture with advanced consciousness to carry out the "Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties project", claiming to use this to enhance the sense of national honor...... I wonder what the common people will think? I'm afraid it will only scold the government for being dizzy and putting the cart before the horse!

Therefore, the Beiyang government invested only funds to raise a group of "masters of Chinese studies" and "high-achieving students studying abroad" in the ivory tower of the university, but ignored the illiteracy everywhere and the blank field of scientific research...... Isn't it good to be such a "Republic of China style" that only attaches importance to "aristocratic education"?

Here is an excerpt from a definition of "Republic of China Fan" in a magazine "Flipping Calendar": "...... If we have to define the "Republic of China style", I think it may be referred to as "aristocratic spirit...... The first is 'self-esteem', the second is 'principled', the third is 'keeping a low profile', and the fourth is 'fame and fortune'......"

The above descriptions can't be miscalculated, and they are not unreasonable, but if I can earn more than 100,000 yuan a month like these masters as long as I write articles and attend classes, and I also have a large amount of manuscript fees and royalties, then I think I should also be able to become very "Republic of China"......

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