陈嘉庚第八篇theringingoftheschoolbell.doc

4. The Ringing of the School Bell学钟长鸣1●For all his products Chen Jiageng used the “bell” trade mark, as the ringing of a bell signified the awakening of the Chinese people, a cultural and political message. 2●Further more, the Chinese word “bell” sounds very much the same as the words “中” and “忠”, respectively meaning “China” and “loyalty” with the implication of “loyalty to China”, Chen Jiageng’s lofty崇高的；高尚的thought and high ambition. 3●In 1913 the first ringing of a bell, the bell of a new type of school, was heard in Jimei. It declared the starting of Jimei Primary School and the beginning of Chen Jiageng’s half a century’s efforts for the education in China.4●After the 1911 Revolution, Chen Jiageng became very interested in matters related to the motherland and considered that he should play his due part in serving his country. 5 ●He made up his mind to return to Jimei to found a primary school. He was convinced that educational promotion in his home village and district was the first step towards modernizing China, and was committed to its development and expansion whenever his personal financial resources permitted. 6●What prompted him to take action to found Jimei Primary School in 1913 was his personal experience during his tours of various villages in 1912. 7●In these tours he observed that many young children were naked, without schooling, and indulged in gambling. 8●When asked the reasons for the idleness of the village children, the villagers told him that the traditional private schools had been closed, and there were no financial resources for founding new ones. 9●It dawned on him that “if this situation is not changed, in ten or more years, will not all these villages become barbaric?”10●Founding a village school was not all plain sailing一帆风顺, for he had to practice a great deal of persuasion among village elders from his own clan家族to allow him to use the ancestral temple as temporary school premises 校址 for teaching purposes. 11●The Chen clan in Jimei was then divided into seven lineages家系with each running an ill-maintained 维持不善的traditional private school. 12●Each of these private schools had fewer than twenty students, as girls were not allowed education. 13●By establishing a primary school in Jimei for all children of the Chen clan, and by financing it with his own resources, Chen Jiageng finally persuaded the village elders to allow the Jimei primary school to be established. 14●When the school was finally opened in January 1913, there were 150-160 students enrolled, divided into five different levels, to be taught by seven teachers. Meanwhile he decided to construct the Jimei Primary School buildings. 15●However, the houses in Jimei village were crowded together and as a result there was limited land available to build on. Fortunately there was a large fish pond facing their house at the west edge of the village. 16●He bought it and created the Jimei School estate. 地产He dug deep ditches in the land around the pond and used the soil to fill in the pond to create a school yard and sports ground. 17●Then he collected召集 some workmen and constructed the school building, which could house seven classes of students. That was the first building of the Jimei schools. 18●The move to establish this primary school at Jimei may have been a modest effort谨小慎微的努力by Chen Jiageng in terms of financial contribution. 19● However, it represented a substantial achievement in educational promotion in the area.20●While still in Jimei in 1913, Chen Jiageng took the trouble to investigate the state of education in Fujian. He inspected the Tong’an District Primary School and the Fuzhou Normal School both of which were badly run with poor result. 21●The findings convinced him that he had a role to play to “salvage 拯救the degeneration衰退of education in Fujian Province” by founding and financing a normal school for teacher training with poor but talented sons from Southern Fujian as its students. 22●A new plan was made in his restless mind. 23●While Chen Jiageng’s pioneering endeavour had the effect of inducing引起;导致his fellow countrymen from other districts to follow his example, it was soon to commit him to provide secondary, tertiary, 高等教育,大学教育professional and vocational education in Jimei and Xiamen, making them a cultural, educational and intellectual centre in South China.New Words loyalty [ 'lɔiəlti ] n. 忠诚, 忠心implication [ impli'keiʃən ] n. 暗示, 含意ambition [ æm'biʃən ] n. 雄心, 野心primary [ 'praiməri ] a. 主要的,初级的revolution [ revə'lu:ʃən ] n. 革命convince [ kən'vins ] v. 说服, 使...相信promotion [ prə'məuʃən ] n. 促进, 提升commit [ kə'mit ] v. 犯罪, 承诺 prompt [ prɔmpt ] vt. 激起, 促进naked [ 'neikid ] a. 裸体的, 无装饰的gambling [ 'gæmbliŋ ] n. 赌博, 投机idleness [ 'aidlnis ] n. 闲散, 失业dawn [ dɔ:n ] n.v. 破晓,一下明白barbaric [ bɑ:'bærik ] a. 粗野, 粗鲁persuasion [ pə(:)'sweiʒən ] n. 说服, 说服力ancestral [ æn'sestrəl ] a. 祖先的, 祖传的premise [ 'premis ] n. 前提，房屋（复数） lineage [ '。