Centennial old text

Author: Hu Jihua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-07-01
Features: A friend suggested compiling a selection of primary and secondary school Chinese language textbooks from the Republican era. "A pile of old papers!" I thought my friend's idea was somewhat naive at the time. How naive! It was almost absurd. In a modern society that has already achieved technological globalization and is dominated economically by consumption, who would be interested in a pile of old papers? No matter how much we consume, it's not worth consuming these yellowed "masterpieces"! My friend's persistence moved me. On a deep winter afternoon, just as snow was about to fall, we went to the basic book collection of Beijing Normal University Library and flipped through those long-dust-covered pages. What first excited my brain cells was the "Advanced Selected Texts for the Primary School Department of the National Central University Experimental School." Randomly picking up a book, a familiar name and a familiar article caught my eye: Mr. Zong Baihua's "The Attitude and Spirit of Scholars." As soon as I saw the name and title, I didn't even need to read the words in the text—those sentences that once shocked my soul flashed in my mind, as if they still illuminated the long, cold, and quiet afternoon in winter: Absolute obedience to truth, fierce sacrifice of prejudice. Would rather sacrifice life than sacrifice truth.