engineer and educator

engineer and educator

Mei Yiqi (December 29, 1889 - May 19, 1962), whose name is Yuehan, was born in Tianjin County, Zhili Province. His ancestors moved from Wujin to Beijing during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty and settled in Tianjin. In 1914, the first group of students returned from Worcester Institute of technology. From 1931 to 1948, he was president of Tsinghua University. In 1955, he founded Tsinghua Institute of Atomic Science in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and served as president.

When Mei Yiqi was president of Tsinghua University, he established the school's character and made great contributions to Tsinghua University. During this period, teachers were strictly selected and recruited, and a system of collective leadership was implemented. Together with ye Qisun, pan Guangdan and Chen Yinke, he was listed as the four greatest philosophers in Tsinghua's 100 year history.

Life of the characters

Mei Yiqi was born in Tianjin on December 29, 1889. The fifth cousin. His father was a scholar, and later became a salt shop clerk. He even lost his job, and his family's financial situation went from bad to worse.

In 1904 (the 30th year of Guangxu), Nankai Middle School was the first student.

In 1908 (the 34th year of Guangxu), he entered Baoding University.

In June 1909 (the first year of Xuantong), Mei Yiqi applied for the first batch of students studying in the United States. He was admitted as the sixth of 630 candidates and became one of the first batch of 47 students studying in the United States.

In 1910, Mei Yiqi entered Worcester Polytechnic Institute to study electrical engineering.

In 1914 (the third year of the Republic of China), Mei Yiqi graduated from the Department of electrical engineering of Worcester Institute of technology with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and was selected as an honorary member of sigmaxi.

In the spring of 1915 (the fourth year of the Republic of China), he returned from abroad. In the autumn of the same year, Mei Yiqi was a physics teacher at Tsinghua School. Later, he served as the provost, temporarily acting as the school administrator, and was supervised by the student supervision office of Tsinghua University in the United States.

In October 1931 (the 20th year of the Republic of China), Mei Yiqi was appointed president of National Tsinghua University. After he took office, he repeatedly expounded the principle of "teachers are the first element of the University" and actively invited domestic and international famous scholars to teach in the University.

In 1937 (the 26th year of the Republic of China), during the Anti Japanese War, Tsinghua University merged with Peking University and Nankai University to form Southwest United University. Mei Yiqi was the standing member of the Council of Changsha Provisional National University, and the following year was the standing member and chairman of the Council of Southwest United University.

In 1943 (the thirty second year of the Republic of China), in "the future of industrialization and the problem of talents", which was drafted by Mei Yiqi and written by Pan Guangdan, Mei Yiqi said that the real industrial organization talents should have a full understanding of psychology, sociology, ethics, and even all the Humanities and cultural backgrounds.

In 1945, after the surrender of Japan, Mei Yiqi went back to Peiping to prepare for the resumption of his school and continued to serve as president until the eve of the liberation of Qinghua garden in December 1948.

In December 1948, Peiping was about to be liberated. Mei Yiqi flew south on a KMT plane. The Kuomintang government repeatedly invited Mei Yiqi to join the cabinet. Mei Yiqi maintained a consistent middle ground. He told reporters, "if you don't come out and feel sorry for your friends in the south, you will be an official when you come. You can't explain to your friends in the north." So he always declined, he still preferred education.

In 1949, Mei Yiqi went to Paris to attend the UNESCO scientific conference as the chief representative of the delegation. After the meeting, he went to the United States.

In 1950, he served as the managing director of Huamei society. The next year, he organized Tsinghua University's Advisory Committee on cultural undertakings in the United States.

In 1953, Mei Yiqi was appointed chairman of the Advisory Committee on cultural undertakings in the United States of the Education Department of the Taiwan authorities.

In 1955, Mei Yiqi flew to Taiwan from the United States and began to use the interest of Tsinghua foundation to organize "Tsinghua Institute of atomic science", which is also the predecessor of Tsinghua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Nobel laureate Li Yuanzhe once studied here. Mei Yiqi was known as "President of Tsinghua University on both sides of the Taiwan Straits" because he laid the foundation of Tsinghua University in Taiwan.

In July 1958, Mei Yiqi was appointed "Minister of education" of Taiwan authorities and President of Tsinghua University. He also served as the vice chairman of the National Science Committee for long term development, and built the nuclear science museum and radioisotope laboratory.

In 1959, Mei Yiqi was also the co chairman of the national long term development science committee of the Taiwan authorities.

In May 1960, he was admitted to NTU Hospital for recuperation.

In February 1961, Feng Zhun resigned as "Minister of education" of the Taiwan authorities, and still served as chairman of the "Atomic Energy Commission".

In February 1962, he was elected academician of Taiwan's Academia Sinica. In May, he served as the chairman of the Preparatory Committee of the Institute of Geophysics of National Central University. On May 19 of the same year, he died at 10:50 am in NTU Hospital.

Character evaluation

Mei Yiqi's personality is quiet, silent and cautious. His students once wrote a doggerel: "probably or maybe, but we dare not say, but the school always thinks, I'm afraid it doesn't seem to be true." Ye Gongchao described him as "slow, steady and firm".

Mei Yiqi was highly praised by Tsinghua teachers, students and alumni: "mentioning Mei Yiqi means Tsinghua" and "Mei Yiqi is the eternal president of Tsinghua".

Chen Daisun: Mei Yiqi has always been a professor at Tsinghua University. Emotionally and from the basic point of view of education, he is consistent with the majority of teachers. He is approachable, democratic style, the school event rate to ask for teachers' opinions, which is also related to his humble character It is the common wish of him and all the teachers to keep Tsinghua as a pure land.

Chen Yinke: if the laws and regulations of a government can be as strict and as few as those of Mr. Mei, that government is the most ideal.

Zhang Jingyu: everyone who has been in contact with President Mei knows that he is a man of few words. No matter at any time or anywhere, he is not willing to speak easily. Even when he gets along with friends or confidants, he is cautious in speaking. However, on certain occasions, when it is necessary for him to speak, he can talk freely and freely, and his words are interesting.

Personal achievement

Work hard at Tsinghua

Mei Yiqi is familiar with history books and loves science. He began to study electrical engineering, and later turned to specializing in physics. He was Minister of education of the Republic of China and academician of Academia Sinica. He is one of the most famous educationists in modern China. His educational practice and his educational theories and ideas have had a profound and important impact on the formation and development of China's higher education in the 1930s and 1940s. Two famous universities in China, Tsinghua University and southwest United University, are closely related to Mei Yiqi's name. During his 17 years as president of Tsinghua University, Tsinghua University has made great progress. There are five colleges, 26 departments and more than 2400 teachers and students in Tsinghua University.

Mei Yiqi returned to China from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1914, where she worked as a teaching and Dean of Tsinghua University. In 1931, Mei Yiqi became the president of Tsinghua University. Since then, he has been serving Tsinghua University until his death in Taiwan. Therefore, he is known as the "lifelong president" of Tsinghua University.

However, don't assume that the president of Tsinghua University is a good one. On the contrary, when Mei Yiqi took the post of president, the domestic situation was in turmoil, especially Peking University and Tsinghua University. In the case of Tsinghua, the movement of expelling the president can be said to be one after another, but at any time, the students of Tsinghua support President Mei. Mei Yiqi is a man of hard work. He was called "a man of few words" at that time. There is a sentence that can be used as evidence. He said: if you don't talk much about politics, how can you listen to Gu Lixing. Under his leadership, Tsinghua University was able to leap from a well-known but non academic school to one of the famous universities in China in ten years.

Compared with Hu Shi, Mei Yiqi is obviously not as famous as Hu Shi. In his life, he only achieved one thing, that is, he successfully took charge of Tsinghua University and established the school standard of Tsinghua University. According to Chen Daisun, this is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is the strict selection and recruitment of teachers, which is the concrete expression of "the so-called university is not a building, but a master". The second is to carry out a democratic system of collective leadership, which is embodied in the successful establishment of an administrative system composed of the faculty Council, the Council and the Council. However, history has its own place to ponder. "All the gentlemen are famous all over the world, and slander also follows." Mei Yiqi is the only one who wins the title of "Xi ran Zhi" and "Xu Wu Yi Ci" behind him. Huang Yanfu, an expert in Tsinghua University history, has been searching for "strange words" or "slanders" about Mei Yiqi in the process of "extensive material collection and research", but he has not found anything. This also proves that the words "Xi ran Zhi" and "Xu Wu Yi Ci" are true.

Educational thought

Mei Yiqi gradually formed many valuable educational thoughts and ideas in his 47 years of educational practice, and guided him to engage in educational work, and achieved fruitful results recognized by the world. These experiences and ideas are worthy of our future generations to absorb, summarize, research and treasure, and are a valuable spiritual wealth, which should be inherited and used for reference. At the same time, his praiseworthy personality charm, moral temperament and personal cultivation reflect the difference between the two heterogeneous cultures in modern China and the West

Chinese PinYin : Mei Yi Qi