19 At the end of the 20th century, the disastrous national crisis in old China was very serious, and the treaty of shimonoseki and the Xin Chou Treaty were signed one after another. At that time, Zhang Jian, the middle-aged champion of high school, resolutely abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown, and embarked on the difficult road of "saving the country through industry and saving the country through education". Zhang Jian not only founded a series of enterprises and institutions in Nantong, his hometown, such as industry, transportation, salt industry, charity and benefiting the people through industry, but also established educational institutions from preschool education to primary, secondary and higher education. From general education and vocational education to special education and social education, normal education is just a more brilliant page.

Zhang Jian attaches great importance to normal education, and "normal education is the mother of education" is the core of Zhang Jian's educational thought. Five years after he founded Sheng Da Cotton Mill, he began to make a profit. His first thought was to run a normal school. Zhang Jian is not only an educational thinker, but also an educational practitioner. He worked hard to realize the blueprint in his heart with perseverance.

However, Zhang Jian's road to running a normal school is not smooth. After a long period of brewing and preparation, in February of the 28th year of Guangxu (1902), Zhang Jian formally put forward the plan of office teacher training to Liu Kunyi, governor of Liangjiang, and local officials in Nantong, but it was rejected. Zhang Jian deeply felt that "it is difficult to do this, and he is thinking about it, but he wants to establish a self-supporting normal school". So he invested more than 20 thousand yuan, and with the support of his brother and other relatives and friends, he raised more than 93 thousand yuan to build a private Tongzhou Normal School, located in the Qianfo Temple in the south of Tongzhou. 1August 902, the school broke ground, covering an area of 4 1 mu, with buildings 104, 172 and corridor 1 16, which can accommodate 300 students. 1March, 930, the school building was completed and named "Tongzhou CoCo Lee Normal School" (hereinafter referred to as "Tongzhou Normal School"). On April 27th, Tongzhou Normal School held the opening ceremony. Zhang Jian gives a speech and writes the school motto. Later, he personally wrote the lyrics of the school song for Tongzhou Normal University, and asked people to compose music, which was widely sung inside and outside the school.

It is not easy to build a school, but it is even more difficult to run it well. Faced with all kinds of difficulties, Zhang Jian didn't flinch. He once said, "Normal school is the place where I work hard", "Home can be defeated, but normal school can't be defeated".

The first problem at that time was money. Tongzhou Normal School pays attention to the selection of students who are "good at sex and arts" for free admission, which provides many students from poor families with opportunities to study, but it also greatly increases the burden on the school. Zhang Jian wanted to take part of the profits of Sheng Da Cotton Mill as a teacher fund, but it was opposed by shareholders. Zhang Jian argued and passed, stipulating that a quarter of the profits of Sheng Da Cotton Mill should be taken as school funds every year, among which Tongzhou Normal School received the most. What is more commendable is that Zhang Jian always draws a considerable part from his annual salary and dividend income to maintain the survival and development of Tongzhou Normal University.

Once again, it is the problem of curriculum. Zhang Jian felt that China's imperial examination system was backward, so he made bold reforms to the curriculum of Tongzhou Normal University.

There is also the issue of education management. Zhang Jian is far-sighted and unique in school management, teaching management, teacher management and normal education management. He believes that education is an organic whole composed of many interrelated factors and a complex systematic project. He regards strengthening organizational discipline as the primary problem of school management, and emphasizes that to run schools well, especially normal schools, strict management is necessary. He attaches great importance to moral education in education management, advocates "morality first, learning second" in education, and puts patriotism first in moral education. He hoped that the students would study hard, study hard, and serve the motherland and avenge their country in the future. Zhang Jian also pays special attention to the cultivation education of normal students, and thinks that "a model should abide by the law, learn to be a teacher, and not break the law", which requires normal students not only to study hard, pay attention to their daily behavior, but also to clean the classroom, clean up the canteen, form labor habits, and vigorously advocate the virtue of thrift among students.

After liberation, Tongzhou Normal School was changed to public and renamed Nantong Normal School, Jiangsu Province, and has been adhering to the school motto of "hard work and self-reliance, loyalty and no bullying". Now it has been listed as a key normal school in Jiangsu Province. Over the past century, Nantong Normal University has trained more than 20,000 qualified teachers, including special-grade teachers, model workers, experts, scholars and politicians, who have made outstanding contributions. It can really be said that "rain and spring breeze study hard and teach well, and peaches and plums are all over the world". Today, this normal school, which has been baptized by wind and rain for nearly a hundred years, is full of youth in the spring breeze of reform and opening up and is moving towards the new century with a brand-new attitude.

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Nantong is the hometown of education with a long history of respecting teachers and attaching importance to education. Nantong Normal University is a good school. "Diligence and self-improvement, faithfulness and no deceit" is a century-old school motto.