Training the Heavens

Chapter 313 The Ink Bottle Incident

In the next few months, Zhang Xingjiu spent most of his time quietly teaching in Shanghai, conducting experiments and research step by step, publishing a few papers from time to time, and continuing to maintain his influence in the scientific community.

At the same time, he had another child, still a boy. Zhang Xingjiu named him Guosheng, which is connected with the eldest brother, meaning the hope that the country will be strong. Ma Zongwen did not delay teaching during pregnancy, and only stayed in the hospital to rest for a while before giving birth.

The students were very moved to see her coming to class despite her big belly. In addition, Ma Zongwen's teaching quality was indeed excellent, so the students gradually put aside their prejudice against women and admired her more and more. As a result, Ma Zongwen became one of the most respected teachers in the entire Aurora University.

This peaceful life was suddenly disrupted in November by an unexpected event, which was the famous ink bottle incident in modern education history.

This incident occurred at the Nanyang Public School, which was founded in 1896. The school was built by Sheng Xuanhuai, the Minister of Railways. Together with the Beiyang University, it was the earliest university founded by Chinese people in modern Chinese history. It was also the first school in China to have a complete educational system including normal schools, primary schools, middle schools and universities.

Among them, the Normal School was the earliest new normal school in modern China; half of the school's funding came from donations from merchants and citizens (namely the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company and the China Telegraph Administration), and half from government funding. It was a public school. In the late Qing Dynasty, the present-day Shanghai area was called Nanyang, so the school was named Nanyang Public School.

During the Republic of China period, the school was transferred to the Ministry of Communications of the Nationalist Government in Beijing and renamed Shanghai Industrial College of the Ministry of Communications, which is the predecessor of the famous Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Later, due to the invasion of Japanese invaders, the school moved westward and gave birth to Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Sheng Xuanhuai attached great importance to this school and specially hired the American missionary and former president of Nanjing Huiwen College (later renamed Jinling University), Fu Kaisen, as the dean of the school; he also appointed Zhang Huanlun, the former head of Meixi Academy, as the chief instructor (Dean of Chinese Studies).

But he was a bureaucrat at heart and was reluctant to hand over the power of managing the school to outsiders, so he specially invited his fellow townsman, the old-school scholar He Sikun, to serve as the principal of Nanyang Public School.

He Sikun worked diligently and dedicatedly. During the more than four years that he presided over the public school, he enrolled more than 4 students of various types and sent more than 300 students abroad. After several years of his management, Nanyang Public School began to take shape.

But it also left behind many bad habits, such as excessive emphasis on the hierarchy between teachers and students, extremely autocratic management, etc., and the "Ink Bottle Incident" was born in such a context.

On November 11, when Class 5 of the Secondary School of Nanyang Public School was in class, the liberal arts teacher Guo Zhenying saw an empty ink bottle on the lecture stage. He thought someone was deliberately teasing and mocking him for being illiterate, and he flew into a rage. He demanded to investigate the matter, but no one in the class responded. The school put pressure on him, and a student in Class falsely accused student Wu Zhengjun of having released the ink bottle.

A week later, at Guo Zhenying's request, the school announced the expulsion of innocent student Wu Zhengjun, which aroused doubts and opposition from the students in Class 5. After the students of Class 5 appealed to the principal to no avail, they decided to drop out of school collectively in protest.

Before leaving, they went to each class to say goodbye and expressed their opposition to this autocratic oppression. This action won the sympathy of all the students in the special class.

After the principal Wang Fengzao learned about this, he announced the expulsion of all the students in Class 5 without asking for any reasons. The students in the school were in an uproar and expressed strong dissatisfaction. Many new-style schools also responded to the news.

As a leading modern school in Shanghai, Aurora College naturally couldn't stay out of the situation. Many students clamored to support the Nanyang Public School students and oppose the school's authoritarian rule. Ma Xiangbo was caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, he sympathized with the Nanyang Public School students who had dropped out and supported their actions wholeheartedly. On the other hand, he and his brothers had always had a close relationship with Sheng Xuanhuai. When Sheng founded Aurora College, he had written a congratulatory letter and donated money, indicating a certain debt of gratitude to the school.

According to traditional moral concepts, if he supported the students of Aurora College to support the dropouts of Nanyang Public School, he would be ungrateful and might have been criticized by traditional scholars.

The more dangerous the situation, the more difficult things will be. Before Ma Xiangbo could figure out how to deal with the matter, Cai Yuanpei, the head teacher of the special class at Nanyang Public School, came to him in a hurry and said, "Mr. Ma, I'm here to ask for your help!"

"What do you mean?" Ma Xiangbo was shocked. Could the impact of the ink bottle incident be so great?

"The students in my special class sympathized with the expelled Class 5 students and were extremely dissatisfied with the school's management. They said, 'Today we are slaves of the school, tomorrow we will be slaves of the government or foreigners. What good will this do for our country?' So they started to think about dropping out!"

"It's not just them. Most of the more than 200 students at Nanyang Public School have similar thoughts. The school is in a difficult situation, so they asked me to appease the students. I finally persuaded them to wait a few days, and then I hurried to see Master Sheng, hoping he could properly resolve the matter. But Master Sheng was very dissatisfied with me and avoided me."

"By around 10 a.m. today, there was still no response, so all the students in the special class, arranged by class, chanted the slogan 'Long Live the Motherland' and walked out of Nanyang Public School in an orderly manner. I also resigned in anger and left the school with the students."

"It doesn't matter if I lose my livelihood. I have a little reputation in the education field, so it won't be difficult for me to find a place to teach and educate people! It's a pity for these more than 200 students. Once they drop out, they will have nowhere to go! After thinking about it, I think your Aurora College is the one with the highest teaching level in the whole of Shanghai and can accommodate them. So I ask Mr. Ma to help and give these students a place to continue their studies!" After saying this, Cai Yuanpei bowed deeply.

In the original history, Aurora College was established to accept some students. Now, because of Zhang Xingjiu, the college was established ahead of schedule. Unexpectedly, the ink bottle incident occurred, and Cai Yuanpei still came to the door.

But then again, there is probably no place in Shanghai, or even in the whole country, that is more suitable than Aurora University to accommodate these students.

"This is the inevitable product of the contradiction between the new education and the old system. Even if there was no ink bottle incident, as long as school teachers still stick to such decadent things as hierarchy and the Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues, similar contradictions will occur sooner or later!" Zhang Xingjiu commented after listening.

This resonated deeply with Cai Yuanpei. "Yes, the reason I wasn't favored by Master Sheng was because I was teaching the theories of Rousseau and other great Western sages at the public school. Master Sheng thought I was violating the principles of respect for hierarchy. He only wanted to use Nanyang Public School to train some talents for the imperial court in the fields of railways and telegraphs. He didn't realize that without breakthroughs in social sciences, the natural sciences in Europe wouldn't have made such rapid progress."

But now they can't chat for long. After Cai Yuanpei finished speaking, he looked at Ma Xiangbo eagerly and said, "Mr. Ma, what do you think about this matter?"

(End of this chapter)