Dong Ze's Idea of Running a School
The Outline of Northeastern University clearly stipulates that the qualifications of teachers are:
1. graduated from a foreign university;
2. People who graduated from their own universities;
3. Those who have profound writings and passed the evaluation by the professors' meeting of our school;
Fourth, famous foreign scholars. He always regards the appointment of excellent teachers as the top priority of running a school, and tries his best to select scholars with "excellent academic ability and rich experience" from Yunnan students returning from Europe, America and Japan to teach in the school. Thanks to his efforts, more than 20 returned scholars have taught in this school. For example, Yang Kerong, Tao, Hua Xiusheng, Versace, Lu Xirong, Xiao, He Yao, Zhang, Huang Huang, Xiao Shoumin, Hua Zhen and Li Yaoshang. There are 53 faculty members in the private Dongda University, 27 of whom came back from studying abroad, not including Bi Jindou and Li Guoqing who came back from Hongkong. In addition, four foreign teachers were introduced to teach English and French, and Yuan Jiagu, a master of Chinese studies and the only economic distinguished member in Yunnan in the Qing Dynasty, was hired as a professor of Chinese Department. Private Dongda University is full of famous teachers and talented people.
Persisting in building Yunnan requires training talents. At the beginning of the establishment of Dongda University, it was proposed that the school should be divided into seven subjects: literature, science, law, agriculture, industry, commerce and medicine. Each discipline is divided into departments, and each department has a director. With the effectiveness of mutual assistance, the founder is ambitious. However, Dong Ze stressed: "The establishment of this school is purely for cultivating talents for the country and developing culture for the local area." He also said: "Yunnan is rich in specialty products, and the future traffic development must form an industrial center in southwest China. Cover can assert. " If so, you need all kinds of talents and you can limit them. And repeatedly stressed: "the education center of our school is based on practicality, so the courses taught should be practical, not what Shang Xuan said." "He said:" The content of universities pays equal attention to arts and sciences, but there are also universities in various countries that offer arts first and then apply for practical courses. But as far as the reality of Yunnan is concerned, there are also opportunities for engineering and mechanical disciplines to be organized at the same time. "
Is the key to running a university well. At that time, few excellent students in Yunnan went to college. In order to recruit qualified students, a liberal arts preparatory course was held first, and it is estimated that 200 students will be enrolled. On March 22nd 1923, Kunming held the entrance examination for college preparatory students. Of the more than 300 people recommended by the province, only more than 30 are up to standard. Faced with the shortage of students, Dong Ze did not take the way of enrolling students by dropping points, but recruited probationers and tutors to improve the quality of students. The first preparatory student 1925 graduated, and the school began to recruit undergraduates. Due to the limitation of local education funds, teachers, students' quality and teaching equipment, the development of the school is greatly restricted. He concentrated his limited strength on cultivating talents in politics, economy and highway construction urgently needed in Yunnan, and established the Department of Civil Engineering for engineering and the Department of Political Economy for liberal arts. The Department of Civil Engineering mainly offers courses on highway construction, and most of these students have devoted themselves to highway construction in Yunnan after graduation. Some people have become experts in highway construction. For example, Guangzong, the first graduate of Dongda University, was the former director of the Provincial Highway Bureau after liberation, and served as the deputy director of the Provincial Communications Department after liberation, and personally presided over the construction of important highway bridges in our province.
In running a school, Dong Ze correctly handled the contradiction between the plan and the reality, which not only cultivated the urgently needed talents in this province, but also made full use of the limited financial, human and material resources, which is an important reason why the school can still develop in various difficulties. The construction of campus environment has its unique views. This is reflected in the location of the school and the construction of the teaching building. In his view, a school is an educational place, and its location must be spacious, moderate and unique, so as to embody the spirit of the university.
1920165438+1October 22nd he and Wang Jiuling >; On the issue of university site, I stated to Tang that "university site is suitable for large-scale areas with clean air", and others personally inspected the inside and outside of the provincial wall, and successively considered Daguanlou and Lao as the site. At first, they thought that "only a grand view building 3 miles west of the city is suitable." Although the building structure is different from the nature of the school, it can be applied with a little modification, which is twice the result with half the effort compared with other buildings. " Because it is a little far from the city, the traffic is inconvenient, the housing is not good, and the cultural origin is not as good as that of Gong Yuan. Therefore, although the discussion was finally abandoned, Gong Yuan in the Ming and Qing Dynasties was finally chosen as the school site. Palace Garden in Ming and Qing Dynasties was originally the place where Yunnan held the rural examination in the imperial examination era. It is located in the north of Kunming, built on the east-west mountain ridge, near Cuihu Lake in the south, near the center of the provincial wall, looking at Snake Mountain in the north, facing Jinma Mountain in the north gate tower in the east and Bijiguan in the west. The so-called "left golden horse, right green chicken, pillow snake mountain, face green lake, no other provinces." Unique geographical location, can be called a treasure trove of geomantic omen. The first university in Yunnan chose to build Gong Yuan, which can not only inherit the cultural tradition of China, but also revive its past cultural glory. This is the best teaching environment chosen by Dong Ze and others for Yunnan University.
1920 at the beginning of preparing for the university, Dong Ze and others thought that the school funds should be at least 3 million. However, from the preparation of private Dongda University to 1927, the total amount of movable property and real estate exceeded1800,000 yuan, which shows that the funding for running a school is quite tight. However, Dong Ze believes that in order to build the highest university in Yunnan, the form of the school building must be magnificent and artistic. He would rather not receive his salary and save money to build a first-class teaching building. He suggested that the teaching building (today's Huize Academy) should be built according to the architectural style of Columbia University and designed by Zhang, a returned scholar studying architecture. The newly-built Huize compound is a huge project, which requires a lot of building materials such as stone, river sand, lime, cement and wood. According to the calculation at that time, more than 2,000 vehicles of Taiping Stone, more than 470 stones, 437 wall stones, more than 230 whole stones, 83 square stones, more than 2,900 window stones, more than 460 corner stones and 65,438 red and blue bricks were needed. In addition to local production, some of these materials are also purchased from abroad through foreign businessmen. For example, they once ordered two bags of black wood (teak) (train skin) from Ruolima Foreign Firm, which were transported from Vietnam to Kunming by Yunnan-Vietnam Railway via Mengzi. Although there is no complete expenditure record for the construction of Huize Hospital, it costs 262,595.25 yuan to buy items such as red bluestone and river sand gravel 1 1. It can be seen that the construction of Hui Ze Hospital occupies a considerable part of the school's funds. After more than a year's construction, Huize Hospital completed in 1925 is magnificent. Its unique architectural style and strict construction quality have withstood the severe tests of natural and man-made disasters such as wind and rain erosion and Japanese plane bombing during the anti-Japanese war for nearly a hundred years, and it is still a symbol of the spirit of the East China Sea. Stepping into the school gate and seeing the majestic Hui Ze Academy, people still respect the foresight and fighting spirit of Dong Ze and other founders. Huize Academy is not only a landmark building of Yunnan University, but also a milestone in the development of higher education in Yunnan. Since then, Yunnan has a hall of modern higher education.