Recently, your circle of friends must have been occupied by the movie "Don't Ask" which was five years late.

The scene that impressed minibus most was played by Chen Chusheng as Wu Lingnan, a student from Tsinghua in the 1920s who got full marks in liberal arts and failed in science, which made him feel very depressed and confused.

He went to his tutor, who asked him why he insisted on studying science. Chen Chusheng said with empty eyes, "Because the best students are studying science". The tutor was silent for a long time and told him, "What did you see? What did you hear? Who were you with?"? If there is a kind of peace and joy that overflows from the deep heart, there is no regret and no shame, then it is true. "

This dialogue can be said to be the "dramatic eye" of the whole movie. And the mentor who said this sentence, its prototype is Mei Yiqi, the most famous legendary headmaster in the history of Tsinghua University. From 193 1, Mei Yiqi became the principal. Since then, he has been serving in Tsinghua University until his death in Taiwan Province Province, so he was called the "lifelong principal" of Tsinghua.

During his stay at the National Southwest Associated University, Mr. Mei Yiqi took the rise and fall of the world as his responsibility at the time of national crisis, and led the teachers and students to withstand the bombing by enemy planes, the crude school buildings and the freezing rain and snow, which gave birth to this "Everest" period in the history of education in China.

Yue Nan, the screenwriter, you are still unfinished after watching the movie. You might as well read the pride and elegance of Mr. Mei Yiqi in those turbulent times.

Biography of Mei Yiqi, President of Tsinghua University (excerpt)

After the teachers and students from the four national The National SouthWest Associated University colleges of literature, science, law and engineering gathered in Kunming again, their popularity was very strong, and the string music was passionate and sonorous, with an iron voice.

Unfortunately, the source of funds is just the opposite. Only 40% of the original funds of Peking University and Tsinghua, plus 40% of the subsidies from Nankai Education Department, total less than 80,000 yuan per month. All parties are short of money, and it is even more difficult to get some decent buildings.

Gate of National Southwest Associated University

The school buildings rented by the General Assembly, such as Tuodong Road, Tunxi Hall, Jiangxi Hall, Quanshu Hall and Yanxingcang, are extremely simple, and they can only barely cope after repair. According to Liang Weilun, a student in the aviation department of the Institute of Technology:

"At the Institute of Technology in Tuodong Road, Kunming, the dormitory is a four-in-one building with two storeys and two warehouses. The room is full of double wooden beds, and insects breed quickly and suffer greatly. The classroom was converted from the former site of a nearby guild hall, and everything was simple. There is a large classroom, which is converted from a main hall in the hall. There is no partition, but it is also ventilated and cool. One day in class, I remember Professor Liu Xianzhou was talking about "mechanics". It was stormy and Liu Jiaoshou was soaked to the skin. When the students were still in a daze for this sudden situation, Liu Jiaoshou laughed at himself: "Not long ago, a friend from Chongqing wrote to ask about the class here, and I wrote back to tell them that everything was satisfactory, rain or shine. This is the greatness of our study at the conference. Do you think it is' rain or shine'? The whole class laughed. "

This is the case in engineering schools, and the situation in other colleges is basically the same, especially in girls' dormitories, which are even as embarrassing as ghost films and magic movies.

Lu Ci, a girl studying in the Department of Foreign Languages of the General Assembly, remembers this vividly. Lu said, "We girls live in a big temple, and there are four or five people in my dormitory. If there are Buddha statues in the room, we will block them with straw mats. If the house leaks water all the year round, we will roll up the bedding and connect it with a washbasin and a mouthwash cup. So when it rains, if there is no class, we will run to the dormitory, or the bedding will get wet. It was really hard at that time. "

National Southwest Associated University classroom

According to Hua Wang, the president of the Associated University, the dormitory where several girls lived at that time was "a large ancestral temple. There are many large and small rooms upstairs and downstairs, and the entrance is a big yard in Upper physical education class. Not far from the second door are the main hall and dining room, where I live in the dormitory. One day, a thin classmate moved upstairs and prepared to move out the next day. Everyone was surprised and asked her. She said that the door was blown open by the cold wind in the middle of the night, only to see a pair of big boots outside, and she dared not live any longer. After listening to it, she didn't sleep a wink all night. "

Such an embarrassing and horrible situation is extremely unfavorable to the life and physical and mental health of teachers and students, and must be improved.

Therefore, Mei Yiqi and Jiang Menglin are supported by the Yunnan provincial government. In July this year, the congress purchased 120 mu of land in Sanfen Temple outside the northwest of Kunming as a school building. The initial budget is tentatively set at 200,000 yuan. According to Mei Yiqi's notice to Tsinghua alumni, the construction fee is "about 200,000 yuan according to one of the subsidies of the China Foundation, that is, the savings of three schools."

Students from National Southwest Associated University are attending classes.

Therefore, the meeting of the school committee decided that the whole building, except for the library and canteen, adopts brick-wood structure and tile roof, and other houses and offices adopt iron roof and are covered with thatch. This move made Liang Sicheng, an alumnus in charge of architectural design in Tsinghua and the president of China Architecture Society, both sympathetic and moved, and once shed tears in front of Mei Yiqi.

1April, 939, according to Liang Sicheng's design, the new school building of Union University was built on a barren hill cemetery in Sanfen Temple. Its landscape is: all the school buildings are bungalows, except the library and the east and west canteens, which are all earthen houses. Only the roof of the classroom is covered with iron sheets, and all the student dormitories and various offices are covered with thatch. Nevertheless, it has its own classrooms, dormitories, libraries, restaurants and other facilities. In Feng Youlan's words, it is "full of courage. With this school building, the conference can be said to have settled in Kunming. "

Office area and new school building of National Southwest Associated University

Unfortunately, due to the shortage of funds, the capacity of newly-built classrooms and dormitories is less than half the capacity required by faculty, students and their families. Of the 36 cottages (east-west 12, north-south 24), only students from three colleges of arts, science and law can use them. The Institute of Technology still stays in the third hall of Tuodong Road, which was originally rented. Later, the Teachers' College rented some school buildings of Kunhua Industrial School, and the faculty rented their own houses in Kunming. Only a few school leaders have their offices in the new campus and their homes need to be rented in the city because of their duties, and the conditions are equally cramped and simple.

A few years later, I described in my diary the embarrassing situation of a family renting a house in the Lijia Courtyard of Long Yuan Village in the western suburbs of Kunming: "There is no dust on the roof of the tile house. For several days, every time the wind blows, dust, sundries, hay and messy leaves fall from the cracks in the tiles. No matter how many times I cleaned the tables, chairs, beds and basins, I looked back and found that there was a layer on them, and the soup and rice dropped with it. I don't know how much dust I swallowed every meal. "

Some teachers and their families in The National SouthWest Associated University.

The last straw, Mei Yiqi moved to a small tulou on the first floor of Jiahui Courtyard not far away. Because the building is in disrepair, it is particularly dilapidated, but after all, there is a place to live. The yard is a two-story building. In addition to one, Wu, Dean of The National SouthWest Associated University Science College, Ren Zhigong, Director of Tsinghua University Radio Research Institute, the head of the Department of Mathematics (the father) and Zhu Ziqing, a professor of Chinese Department, all lived here. This courtyard became the largest and most concentrated residential area of National Southwest Associated University at that time.

The Tang family, who worked in the library of the General Assembly at that time, lived upstairs. Many years later, Tang's son still remembers this scene: one day after lunch, his mother cleaned the tables and chairs and swept the floor as usual. Just then, I heard Miss Mei Jiasan downstairs shouting, "Mrs. Tang, don't sweep the floor, we are eating!" "It turned out that dirt and dust fell down along the cracks in the floor with the sweeping of the broom, and became the" pepper noodles "of Meijia food.

Mei Yiqi, who lives in a tile-roofed house and a small building, has tasted a lot of Yunnan customs, but the teachers and students who are lucky enough to move to the tin-roofed classroom to teach and attend classes are also deeply distressed. There is nothing in the classroom except blackboard, lecture table and chair (there is a board on the right armrest, which is convenient for taking notes, because it looks like Xuanwei ham, also called ham table). In rainy Yunnan, the humidity and sweltering heat are unbearable for teachers and students from the north. Once it is windy and rainy, the iron sheet will sway on the roof like estrus, and with the harsh cries, the professor's lectures have already been drowned.

People who seek pleasure in suffering write couplets on this unique scenery and post them on campus, saying:

The sound of wind and rain reading is in the ear;

Family affairs, state affairs and everything in the world care about everything.

This couplet is self-deprecating, and it also encourages the teachers and students of the congress to fight for the future of the country in accordance with the school motto of "fortitude and perseverance" in the harsh environment of the national war of resistance. Many years later, Yang Zhenning, who studied here, still remembers this special life. Yang said: "At that time, the classroom of the General Assembly was a house with a tin roof. When it rains, the jingle keeps ringing. The ground was pressed by mud, and a few years later it was full of dirt; There is no glass in the window, so the paper must be pressed with something when it is windy, otherwise it will be blown off ... "This later Nobel Prize winner in physics, Li Zhengdao and other students who won the prize with him, grew up step by step in such an environment and finally reached the academic peak of the world.