The lofty university is filled with endless singing. The series “School String Song·Reading China Here” entered the Southwest Jiaotong University library today. Volumes of collections that have traveled through the war record the prosperous years when an engineering college shared the same fate as the country and the nation.
Recently, the Southwest Jiaotong University Library launched a special collection exhibition. In the exhibition hall, a graduation project manuscript from 83 years ago is eye-catching: the hand-painted color pictures are delicate and delicate, and the Gothic English is as neat as typeface. At that time, the school moved to Guizhou and used the Confucian Temple to run the school. This manuscript was born under the tung oil lamp.
Professor Yang Linchuan, School of Architecture, Southwest Jiaotong University:It is extremely rare to be able to complete a super-high-quality work under such difficult conditions. The professional attitude of striving for excellence allows us to see the tradition of rigorous scholarship reflected in the early days of Jiaotong University’s architectural education.
In the ancient books special collection exhibition hall, precious classics such as “Questions on the Six Classics” of the Ming Dynasty and the “Collection of Ancient and Modern Books” given by the Qing Dynasty attracted many teachers and students. Behind them lies a story of a lonely city keeping books. In 1937, the Japanese and puppet troops occupied the Tangshan campus of Jiaotong University. Jiang Xiubing, the director of the library at the time, worked hard to move more than 37,000 volumes of books to Baoding Lianchi Academy to protect the cultural heritage of the school.
Zhang Wanhong, Administrator of the Cultural Education and Special Collections Ancient Books Department of Southwest Jiaotong University Library:It was summer vacation and there was no one in the school. The Japanese tried to transport our books back to Japan several times. Mr. Jiang found a way to fight, and all of our more than 30,000 books were saved. In the midst of the war, it is not easy to have a book missing. What he protects is not only our collection of books, but also the context and foundation of our school.
The flames of war can destroy school buildings, but they cannot extinguish the light of pursuit of knowledge and scholarship. In the more than 100 years since the school was founded, Southwest Jiaotong University has experienced 18 displacements. During the war of resistance against Japan, teachers and students set out from Tangshan carrying classics and instruments and traveled to Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan, preserving the fire of engineering education for the country. In the 1960s, it moved west to Emei in response to the call for third-line construction. After the reform and opening up, the main body of the school moved to Chengdu, forming a school-running pattern of “one school, two places and four campuses”. But no matter what changes occur, the library has always been an indispensable spiritual position of Southwest Jiaotong University.
Yang Aihua, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Southwest Jiaotong University:In the collection of our library, there are many assignments, experimental reports and graduation thesis of students at various historical stages. The requirements are very strict and you will almost never pass. Our railways, mining and metallurgy can be said to be wrong even if they are missed by a thousand miles, so there cannot be any mistakes, which has formed our school-running tradition of “rigorous scholarship and strict requirements”; “strengthening the country through practical work and continuous self-improvement” has become a spirit that our school has been promoting for 130 years. “Hongshi” means persisting in pursuing practical learning and strengthening the foundation, so that you can bear good fruits; “Yanghua” means promoting China and serving the motherland.
“Building solid foundations and promoting China”, during the 130 years of running the school, Southwest Jiaotong University has produced a large number of engineering talents who serve the country. Mao Yisheng, the “Father of Chinese Bridges”, is one of them. With the ideal of “saving the country through science and serving the country through engineering”, Mao Yisheng presided over the construction of the Qiantang River Bridge, my country’s first modern dual-use railway and highway bridge. However, in the face of a national crisis, in order to prevent the bridge from falling into the hands of the enemy, he reluctantly participated in blowing up the project he had devoted so much effort to.
Yang Yongqi, associate research librarian of the Cultural Education and Special Collections Ancient Books Department of Southwest Jiaotong University Library:It was only built eighty-nine days ago, but for the sake of the war of resistance and the sake of the country, this bridge must not be left to the Japanese and must be bombed. But he made a vow that “the war of resistance will be won and the bridge will be restored.” After 1946, he returned to Hangzhou and repaired the Qiantang River Bridge, fulfilling his promise.
CCTV reporter Gao Chenyuan:In 2016, the library of Southwest Jiaotong University’s Jiuli campus was officially named Mao Yisheng Library. Here, the “Century Master, Centenary of Light and Shadow” Mao Yisheng image exhibition has become a permanent exhibition. The library also houses a batch of Mao Yisheng’s precious archives, allowing everyone to experience Mao Yisheng’s life of patriotic struggle up close and draw the strength to move forward.
Mao Yisheng has returned to his alma mater four times to take charge of school administration. He proposed the engineering education concept of “learn before learning, learn while learning” and advocated going into engineering sites and perceiving problems in practice, which has become the educational background of Jiaotong University passed down from generation to generation.
Ren Siyuan, a 2023 civil engineering student at Southwest Jiaotong University (Mao Yi promoted):From Teacher Mao, we can truly feel what it means to save the country through science, and learning skills well is to respond to the needs of the times. As engineering talents in the new era, we must continue to pass on the baton of patriotism and serving the country.
Mao Yisheng answered “What is the purpose of learning skills” with a bridge. Today’s young people at Jiaotong University are continuing to answer in their own ways: on the construction line of the Sichuan-Tibet Railway, nearly a hundred members of the doctoral service team climbed onto the snowy plateau and wrote their papers in the frozen soil and tunnels; the team of Academician Zhai Wanming won the first national autonomous project in the field of rail transit. Ran Science Award, the results have been applied to more than 50 high-speed railway lines; the intelligent monitoring technology of large tunnels and tunnel groups developed by Academician He Chuan’s team has been widely used in nearly 20 provinces across the country. The four words “make progress and promote China” have been passed down from generation to generation of Jiaotong University.
For more than 100 years, the Southwest Jiaotong University Library has never been just a library, but also a spiritual melting pot for cultivating moral integrity and cultivating people. Relying on its rich collections, the school has created the “Enjoy Reading Cultural Festival”, released the “Yanghua Book List”, and carried out more than 40 reading activities on a regular basis. At the same time, it has accelerated the digitization of special collections, so that more people can understand the spiritual context of this century-old engineering university and understand the responsibility of young engineering students to serve the country in the fragrance of books.
Jia Zhaoshuai, Secretary of the Party Branch of Southwest Jiaotong University Library:How can our library better serve the school’s fundamental mission of cultivating moral character and cultivating people? One is to collect and educate people, to discover the stories of Jiaotong University behind these ancient books and special collections; the other is to read and educate people, allowing our students to go to the vast sea of books to absorb the nutrition and wisdom of their life growth, so that they can truly achieve all-round development and grow into a new generation of people who take on the responsibility of national rejuvenation.
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