In his later years, in My World, Cao Juren recalled that when he was studying in Zhejiang No.1 Normal School, he wrote Our Principal. He said: "There have been many principals in the First Normal University, but what we call' our principal' only refers to Mr. Jing Ziyuan (Hengyi) and has nothing to do with other principals." At the beginning of 1920, during the winter vacation, the principal, who was deeply loved by students, was suddenly transferred from the official department and changed to the Zhejiang Provincial Education Department as an inspector, which triggered a "Zhejiang First Normal School Running Tide". At that time, Cao Juren wrote a letter to the headmaster in the name of all the students, expressing their inner disappointment and expectation:

"Since you left, we cried for several days, as if we had lost a loving mother with a child. ……

"In retrospect, we often ask you,' What is this? Why is this? "What the hell is going on?" You always guide us seriously, comfort us, set an example and encourage us with the spirit of independence and self-motivation. How interesting we are! ……

"This gentleman! You are not only our headmaster, but also our loving mother! ..... "Help the children!

"Save the children!"

The next day, Jing Hengyi also wrote back to the students in the vernacular:

"Brothers:

"I received your letter yesterday, and every word and tear made me sad and speechless! The word' mother' is really despicable. You use this sentence to express your infinite feelings, and I will use this sentence to compare and imitate my difficulties. This mother is very poor. Under the pressure of three generations, she is the daughter-in-law of a dark family. There are a lot of gossip ... "

He felt that it was his "fault" to be an appointed principal in such an air around him and make innovations boldly in an official school. What happened to Jing Hengyi? Why is he jealous of the authorities and wants to leave? From the "Declaration on Retaining the President by All Staff", we can generally see more clearly:

"Since its establishment, the school has always adopted the policy of keeping pace with the times. During this period, all measures are jointly studied by principals and vocational education staff, and improved at any time; Only when things go smoothly can we feel at ease. Therefore, for more than ten years, the school has always had the spirit of reform and has been living a reformed life. However, the previous reforms had no impact outside the school! By the time the school started last autumn, both the headmaster and the vocational education teacher felt that the spirit of the times had changed a lot. The organization, teaching and management training of this school should undergo major reforms to conform to the world trend. Therefore, there will be several reforms after the start of school, such as full-time staff, student autonomy, changing Putonghua teaching and reorganizing the subject system. "

These projects may be nothing today, but they were undoubtedly innovative and bold reforms at that time. From 19 12, Jing Hengyi served as the principal of Zhejiang First Normal School (formerly known as Zhejiang Second Normal School) for nearly 10 years. He is a native of Shangyu, Zhejiang Province. 1903 studied in Japan, and 1907 returned to China as the provost of the two-level normal school of Zhejiang government. He has always had views and opinions on education. 19 19 may 12 influenced by the Beijing student movement, Hangzhou students also took to the streets. As the principal, he recorded in his diary that day: "I arrived at school after six o'clock, and the students haven't arrived yet." Gave me some conservative orders not to make a move. Is to go to the education department, and ... Contact the military and the police respectively to avoid misunderstanding. At 9 o'clock, there were more than 3,000 students in the city. Starting from the public playground, they passed the education meeting first, and they were very angry. Long live the rest, and they didn't return to their original place until after 3 pm. The order is very good. " Today, we passed the gate of Hangzhou High School (Zhejiang No.1 Normal School is one of its predecessors), and we can also see that the stone tablet records its glory of that year.

Zhejiang No.1 Normal School became the center of the May 4th New Culture Movement in the south of the Yangtze River, and trained a large number of students with ideals and pursuits, such as Feng Zikai, Pan Tianshou, Wei, Shi Cuntong, all of whom could not do without this principal. Later, they took different paths, all with the trace of a teacher and the unique imprint of that era. They were lucky enough to catch up with that era and accept the baptism of new culture. Fan, a classmate economist who is familiar with Jing Hengyi, commented that when he was the principal of the first division, he "didn't raise personal interests, didn't get involved in public funds, didn't hire mentors and friends, and stayed in office for a long time, with the motto of" diligence, sincerity and forgiveness "and achieved remarkable results. Mr ..... presided over education all his life and advocated the so-called "personality education". He set an example, upright and upright, cheerful, focused on influence and encouragement, and opposed conservatism and repression. For students who teach students in accordance with their aptitude, we should help them to be automatic, free, independent and self-disciplined. For the curriculum, we advocate all-round development, from literature, art, science and mathematics to physical education and sports. Tao Zhu's personal knowledge, morality, physique, beauty and group education are all-encompassing, and the goal is to cultivate talents with both ability and political integrity and knowledge to serve the country. " As long as there are sufficient reasons, he always agrees with the students' demands. When he was young, Liu Zhiping was obsessed with music, and most courses except music failed, but the school still issued diplomas. Liu Zhiping later became a famous musician.

During the May 4th Movement, Jing Hengyi decided to carry out educational innovation in Zhejiang No.1 Normal University and put it into practice in the second half of 19 19, mainly focusing on the above four aspects. The full-time staff system has little influence on the outside world, and the disciplinary system is very insightful, but it has not been implemented in his hands. The most controversial and ultimately troublesome thing is student autonomy and changing classical Chinese into vernacular Chinese. The outline of student autonomy was decided at the general meeting of all employees. On June19191KLOC-0/6, the Judicial Autonomy System was officially promulgated, and nine autonomy outlines were formulated temporarily. The first is to divide school affairs into two parts: student autonomy and school administration. Article 4 Schools shall not interfere with students' behaviors that do not interfere with school management. Article 8 stipulates that the scope of student autonomy includes matters related to students' health, academic research, ideological expression, self-cultivation, food, clothing, housing, extracurricular homework, social services, school cleaning, punishment and exhortation of classmates' behavior, saving and selling, and extracurricular access. The purpose is to cultivate students' automatic ability, self-discipline habit and spirit of mutual assistance. The detailed rules for the implementation of autonomy were completely worked out by students at a meeting. The self-government committee was established quickly and operated effectively. In addition, the school also has a book and newspaper sales department, and new publications such as Weekly Review, Education Tide, Youth Language, New Youth, New Trends and Construction all have a lot of sales.

The most successful thing should be the implementation of vernacular Chinese. At that time, the professor of vernacular Chinese was still the founder, and there were no ready-made textbooks available. As a result, the conference of Chinese professors in the school initially outlined the Chinese teaching method. According to 16 questions about life, family, chastity, literature, etc., more than 100 articles were selected in different categories, which were mainly published in the new journals at that time. The authors were Lu Xun, Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi. But the purpose of this kind of teaching materials is to let students use critical eyes and research methods, not to make students credulous and blindly follow. Compared with the rigid classical Chinese teaching, it is a great breakthrough. As the Teaching Methodology Outline says, in form, "students can understand articles published in modern languages or close to modern languages, such as classical Chinese used in daily newspapers and magazines and textbooks of various disciplines, and can read them quickly, correctly and thoroughly." Enable students to express their thoughts and feelings in modern language-whether oral or written, but also free, clear, universal and fast. "In essence, it enables students to understand the true meaning of life and social phenomena.

Let's look at the diary of Wang Shouhua, a student in September 2009 19 16, and we can see what education was like in China at that time. Chen Wangdao said in Chinese class: "The essence of writing is to express your own meaning and let others understand. Since the essence of writing is like this, we should do it from the easy side. Why? Because words are easy, individuals can naturally understand what I mean. If he uses classical words, he must have my level, or be higher than my level, to understand. " "If we know that writing should not be confined to ancient times, we should conform to the world trend, so we should reform it. So, can you talk about the method of reform? Now there are three ways for everyone to study. " These three methods are: first, change to vernacular; second, use punctuation; third, change "straight" to "horizontal" on the grounds of convenience for writing, reading and economy. It is under the auspices of Jing Hengyi that teachers can carry out such bold reforms and explorations. Other reforms include the election of a Council to decide the major events of the whole school and the implementation of economic opening.

When it rained, when the inspector of the education department asked questions, Jing Hengyi answered them one by one: Regarding the full-time staff, "The shortcomings of our schools in China are all due to the autocratic principals. Teachers are most responsible for teaching, not for schools. I teach several courses at the same time and have no time to study. The teachers in this school have great will and great sacrifice to do this. Now that the budget has not increased, it will be allocated according to the original budget. Each member is only 70 yuan per month, a few dollars less than before. On the contrary, you will increase your responsibilities outside of teaching and be responsible for yourself. ..... hold a regular meeting once a week and hold meetings for several days to discuss research issues. Therefore, for the staff, I believe that the word' brainstorming' has been done. "

Regarding student autonomy, "Why should schools implement autonomy? From the feelings of graduates. I have finally run this normal school for more than ten years. I usually pay attention to the situation of graduates. Why am I not creative? I think it's because they stayed in school for a few years and we hurt them. It's too late to realize it now, and it's not too late to regret it. It was said before that the purpose of education is to cultivate self-discipline; There is also a saying that you must go through considerable heteronomy. But in school, it was completely heteronomy. Where does self-discipline call him from? In the "training theory" of pedagogy, there are clearly two sentences: "guidance" and "training". What's the point of these two sentences if students are not allowed to be autonomous? Only when students have the ability to be independent can they be independent. How long do they have the ability to be autonomous until they are not autonomous? "

Students' autonomy is not because students have the ability of autonomy, but a beginning and training. Autonomy has not been long, but it has shown results in some aspects, such as banning smoking. In the past, how many ways and means were not solved by schools, but by autonomy? For example, students' management of the canteen has also been greatly improved, such as the implementation of the leave system.

Regarding Professor China's reform, he thinks that education will never be popularized without the reform of China's writing. As a teacher principal, we should not only create a few students, but also strive to popularize education. "Want to want to go, Chinese professor, of course, is the first to study the problem. ..... In order to hire a Chinese teacher, I have changed my purpose several times, neither old nor new. Criticizing the graduates of normal universities mostly means that their Chinese level is not enough. I think, in this short period of five years, it is not only bitter for students, but also really a mistake in life to cultivate a "scholar", "Hanlin" and useless poems and songs, and a subset of history that can't be started. Therefore, I decided that "Chinese should be education-oriented, not Chinese-oriented", and I must advocate transforming Putonghua into classical Chinese. Our normal school is nothing more than popularizing education, not specializing in' national heritage'. You don't have to worry about classical Chinese and vernacular Chinese. Some ideas can be written, that's all. " Phonetic symbols are the gospel of Putonghua and should be taught. He said that education can only be taught after promoting vernacular Chinese. If we want to talk about education, we must reform the former Professor China.

For the academic year system, he thinks that the shortcomings of the academic year system are "ignoring young people's time and binding students' ability;" "Respect the procedure of doing things, and act as a uniform abuse. If you fail a subject, you will have to repeat the grade for one year, and the rest of the passing subjects will be punished for one year. If you fail to get to work, you will still have to deduct points. " The method of discipline system is to destroy the academic year system. Taking the subject as a unit, each subject is divided into several credits, completed in several years, and completed in several units, even if you graduate. At that time, the specific implementation measures were still being studied. As early as before the innovation, he had partially adopted vernacular Chinese in the Chinese class of Zhejiang First Normal University, thinking that "the dark tide of Peking University is second only to Zhejiang, and it is also the light of the school". When someone objected and resigned, he thought that "the Chinese professor has the hope of innovation next school year, and it is necessary to find a peer as soon as possible." It happened in April. During the summer vacation, he has been running for his new teacher. Chen Wangdao, Liu Dabai, licijiu, and Xia Mianzun, who were originally in school, were Chinese teachers in four grades, known as the "Four donkey kong", all of whom taught the vernacular.

It is natural for Jing Hengyi to advocate "personality education" to innovate a teacher's behavior. Personality education is not empty moral preaching, but essentially civic education, which is put forward relative to vocational education. As Cao Juren recalled, "We study in a normal school. Every grade, every team and every week, there is always an hour of' cultivation' class taught by teachers themselves; This is his chance to contact us. His so-called "self-cultivation" is not "self-cultivation", but to cultivate a "citizen" who has contributed to society. His educational goal is personality education, which is in direct opposition to the "vocational education" advocated by Mr. Ren Huang Zhi, a member of Jiangsu Education Association. He hopes that we will all become sound citizens; He also used the word "light" in Liu Shao's People's Tales to illustrate the extreme principle of life, that is, a bowl of clear water; A bowl of clear water can be used for various purposes. Vocational education is water with flavor; No matter what taste of water, there are limitations. The teachers he hired have a great influence on students in knowledge and conduct, and the educational policy he formulated is also quite conducive to the development of students' personality. I later read his self-report, only to know that his study of philosophy of life is the deepest. He believes that all moral concepts and ethical relationships are not static. Therefore, he not only actively accepted the May 4th ideological revolution, but also actively promoted it. Is it because he accepted new ideas and was hated by the old society, or is his sense of justice in conflict with the provincial Council? Maybe a little bit of both; Therefore, when Qi Yaoshan, the governor representing the reactionary forces, and Xia Jingguan, the director of education, joined forces with the old forces in Zhejiang to attack him, the scribes stood proudly and did not flinch! "

In Cao Juren's memory, "our headmaster"-"tall, slow to speak, and I, a pupil, just hit it off. Such a principal looks like him, and I am afraid of him from the bottom of my heart. " "The headmaster is a man who dares to do things. He has been honest all his life and acted according to his own ideals. He doesn't care much about gains and losses, so he has a nickname "Poison Head". He doesn't love power and refuses to have children, but he is not a hermit. "

When Cao Juren entered Zhejiang First Normal University, Jing Hengyi had been the principal for many years. He often mentioned in his diary that he was giving students a self-cultivation class. In his long education career, he gradually realized the true meaning of education. What he cares about is popularizing education and cultivating citizens with sound personality. From the concept of personality education to the practice of educational innovation, it is close to the modern goal of popularizing education. It is in this sense that he became a modern educator. Although he tried for a short time, he personally only worked in this position for one semester, but the moment is eternal. His thoughts and efforts have been recorded in the history of education and also integrated into the history of civilization transformation.

In such an atmosphere, students' personality has been publicized, their ability has been improved, their mental state is full and enthusiastic, and they are really susceptible to various ideological trends, but in fact they have more room for independent thinking. The appearance of student publications such as "Zhejiang Fashion" and the publication of student Shi Cuntong's shocking article "Unfamiliar" were unexpected by Jing Hengyi. For a time, he went to Shanxi for a meeting, but he didn't know what had happened. However, in the face of pressure from the official hall, he admits that he clearly knows that the students are students of Zhejiang First Normal University and he will be responsible. In fact, this is just an excuse, a fuse. The key is that the old forces want to pull him down from the leading position in Zhejiang education. In addition to the president of the First Normal University, he is also the president of Zhejiang Education Association, which has a great influence. Running the "education tide" has made some people jealous. The publication of Unfortunate Filial Piety just provides them with an opportunity. Jing Hengyi knows that his innovation career can't go on, and he is also wise, but he still tries his best to save the innovation career of Zhejiang No.1 Normal University, regardless of his personal future. That's what he said when he answered the students, and so did he.

Although the final outcome was not satisfactory, in the protests of students and all walks of life, Guantang made some concessions. After Jiang Bohan, president of Nankai University, succeeded, he largely continued the practice of the Jing Hengyi era. Although the "Four donkey kong" has gone, the teachers of vernacular Chinese have been replaced by cutting-edge Peking University graduates Zhu Ziqing and Yu Pingbo, and the discipline system has been implemented. This will make him feel gratified. Jing Hengyi is not a nostalgic person. When he was transferred to the Education Department to inspect his studies, he immediately refused and left Hangzhou. He never missed it, even though he liked Hangzhou for more than ten years. Because of his busy work, he seldom has time to wander among the lakes and mountains. Even if you play and come and go in a hurry, you still leave your admiration for the beauty of the West Lake from time to time in your diary. On March 23, 2009, on a foggy Sunday, he passed by Su Causeway, feeling that "the peach blossoms are wet, the new willows are about to drip, and the scenery is rare." /kloc-On the evening of September, 0/9, he went boating in the West Lake. "The level of the lake is like a mirror, and the lights are like a forest. It grew up in Hangzhou, and this scene is rare. "

Farewell to Zhejiang First Normal University is not the end of Jing Hengyi's educational career. He founded the famous chunhui middle school in his hometown Shangyu, which is a new world.