A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 87
Those who apply for the official school are all high-ranking officials and nobles, who come from official families. They are either rich or powerful, and most of them hold official positions, so they have a lot of money.

Naturally, Fan Xiren was not in need of money. Because of Fan Wencheng's relationship, the Fan family's status in the Qing Dynasty was not low.Moreover, Fan Xiren was also a disciple of Zhang Zhidong. After the death of Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong's status in the late Qing Dynasty was self-evident.

Fan Xiren soon understood what Lin Binghua had done just now. He was a son after all, so naturally he would not be offended by putting on a show. He pointed to Lin Binghua's table and said to Xiao Er, "Give me the same dish for this table too."

Lin Binghua sneered after hearing this, thinking it was nothing more than that.

But Fan Xiren said again: "I want ridge fin for shark's fin, and I need three silk shark's fin for the method, and Dalian Liao ginseng for sea cucumber. Let your chef cook it yourself, and if you tell An Lingdong, I, Fan Xiren, said it."

The Fan family is a thousand-year-old family at any rate, and their ancestors have produced a lot of high-ranking officials such as Shangshu.

Lin Binghua is only a local official in Hebei, and his official status is donated, so in terms of cultural background, he is still far behind Fan Xiren.

Li Yu smiled and said, "Brother Fan, there's no need for that."

Fan Xiren waved his hand: "Brother Li, don't worry, today is my treat."

Ouyang Mouyuan kept smiling and didn't make a sound. Ouyang's family is not an idle family either.Lin Binghua glanced at them, knowing that he lost today's round, and that he was going to mess with his official career in the future, and he didn't want to offend the two of them, so he ate shark fin sea cucumber with rice.

From the conversation, Li Yu felt that all of them should be able to pass the exam, and Fan Xiren said that the grading standard of the Shixueguan exam should indeed be significantly lowered.

Li Yu picked up the wine glass: "I will raise a glass, and I wish you all the titles on the gold list!"

Everyone raised their glasses and drank together.

The dishes on the table in front of me are also quite interesting. The nine-turn large intestine is served with sea cucumber and shark fin, which is too visually impactful!A table of people is also delicious.

There is still an exam the day after tomorrow, and the drinking is just a taste, anyway, there will be plenty of opportunities to meet in the university hall.

The first part of the assessment on the third day is the six questions about arithmetic ratio root algebra.

Li Yu felt that it was too simple:

(1) Ask three thousand nine hundred and sixteen multiplied by 760, what is the number?

(2) Ask today that there are five sixths, eight ninths and seven fifteenths, and ask for common points.

These two arithmetic problems are simply elementary school mathematics, okay?

Algebra questions follow:
(3) There are two algebraic formulas such as: Sanjia ⊥ Diethyl T C and Dijia T B ⊥ Wu C, find the sum.

This is according to the mathematical expression of the Qing Dynasty. If it is translated into modern language, it will be: 3a+2b-c and 2a-b+5c, find the sum.

Um, elementary school math too?

Another algebra problem is that the expression is a little more troublesome:
(4) Ask if you use three T eight appointments every day T eight days T three, what is the result?
How about it, at first glance, is it messy? In fact, it is translated into modern mathematical language: (x3-8x-3)/(3-x).

x3 is the third power of x.

It should be counted as first grade mathematics.

There is also an application topic:
(5) There are two kinds of gold and silver mixtures, one kind contains 850 fen of gold in one thousand fen, and the other contains 920 fen of gold in 15 fen. Gold nine hundred percent, ask how much should be extracted?
It's also quite simple, elementary school application questions.

Finally, a geometry problem:

(6) The sum of the triangles in a triangle is equal to two right angles, how to prove it?
In short, looking at it this way, it is really simple, basically not beyond the mathematics of the first year of junior high school.

Li Yu finished it in less than 5 minutes.

I thought that there would be at least some depth in high school mathematics, but I didn't expect that, that's it?
Although it is very simple to do, but when you think about it carefully, the entrance math test of the majestic Jingshi University is so simple, I still feel deeply embarrassed!

No wonder Martin said at the time that Chinese scholar-officials were adults in terms of literature, but they were still children in terms of science. This was clearly a question for children!

The following physical chemistry exam is also very simple:
Question: The so-called change of matter among physicists has three abnormalities.How about the three metamorphosis, try to discuss it.

Question: Today someone threw a stone far away, and instead of seeing the straight fall of the stone, he saw the curved fall of the stone.What is the reason?
Question: People go by train, but they don’t know that the train is going, but they see houses and trees retreating on the road.What is the reason?
Basically the most basic physics common sense.

Question: What is the difference between the chemical change and the so-called change in physics?
Question: What is the reason for the burning of objects?

Question: There is a question about the rays of the sun made up of seven colors.How can it be proved?
Chemistry is also very simple.

Except for the first day's history, self-cultivation and righteousness, the difficulty of asking questions was online, and today's western studies felt like a joke.

Geography is equally simple:
Question: The best author of the names of capitals and commercial ports in European and American countries.

Question: Both England and Japan are known as great countries on the earth, but there are no long rivers and great rivers in their countries. Why?
Anyway, it's about the same difficulty.

The foreign language question is either English or Japanese. Li Yu just learned Japanese recently, and wrote an English article and a Japanese article each.

It's just that today's exams are too easy and boring...

But the entrance examination in Japan at the same time was not so simple, which also explains why the outstanding students sent by the Capital University later went to Japan and other countries to go to middle school for a period of time, and then go to Japanese universities.

In the final analysis, in the Imperial University, they only learn the content of elementary and middle school.

This is the status quo.

Can you not fall behind!
In fact, Li Yu hoped that the difficulty would be the same as the history and literature questions on the first day.

Sigh!

After the exam, I found that even a student who had just finished his nine-year compulsory education traveled to the Imperial University in 1902, as long as he could understand traditional Chinese characters and understand the special mathematical expressions of the Qing Dynasty, he could be admitted to the Imperial University.

Of course, everything is difficult in the beginning.

In a few years, this situation will change considerably, and the level of domestic universities will improve rapidly.Although it can't reach the level of Cambridge and Oxford, it can at least reach a normal level.

Just like learning ball games, the initial progress will be very fast, because there is too much room for improvement.

After the exam, Weiliang Ding, Rulun Wu and others got together to start marking papers by subject.

Examination papers are very similar to scientific examinations, and the examinee's name cannot be seen by the marking teacher, which is more fair.

As for the release time of the results, it is similar to that of the scientific examination, usually three days after the end of the examination.

Fortunately, there were not many exam papers. After calculation, the Shi Xue Hall received a total of 165 exam papers, and the Normal Hall received a total of 652 exam papers.

Weiliang Ding was the fastest in grading papers. After all, in mathematics, if you know it, you will know it, and if you don’t know it, you won’t.

On the contrary, grading papers on self-cultivation, righteousness, and pedagogy was particularly troublesome, and Wu Rulun and Gu Hongming were there to read long-winded papers.

Wu Rulun saw an article on pedagogy, and suddenly he was quite shocked: "There are candidates who use western pens to answer the papers!"

Gu Hongming said: "Just now I saw it when I was reading the article on self-cultivation and righteousness, but the writing of the article is really mediocre, I only gave it a passing score of 60."

Fortunately, it was Gu Hongming who saw Li Yu's test paper, otherwise, at Wu Rulun's level, seeing what Li Yu wrote would definitely give him a failing grade.After all, an old scholar of Confucianism like Wu Rulun is still very serious about the scriptures.

And Gu Hongming was educated in the West, and he didn't have a deep study of Chinese culture, and he was too familiar with pencil characters.

It would be fine if it just passed by like this, but Wu Rulun said after hearing it: "Let me see!"

Done!

He took Li Yu's chapter on self-cultivation and righteousness, and at a glance he saw that it was written by the same person.

If it is a scientific examination, it can be transcribed by a special person to avoid recognizing the handwriting, but the Imperial Academy obviously does not have so much time and manpower.

Wu Rulun looked at it for a while, and said dissatisfiedly: "No, how can I get [-] points? As far as this calligraphy and this article are concerned, I can see up to [-] points!"

Gu Hongming was ashamed, and the difference was too much.But Wu Rulun is the head teacher of the middle school, so he still has the final say.

Wu Rulun turned to look at the pedagogy paper in his hand, "It's just that this pedagogy paper is really well written. If I were to give it a score, I'm afraid I'd give it a full score."

Yan Fu and Lin Shu next to him became interested, "Full marks?"

The two came together one after another. It is extremely difficult to get full marks in pedagogy, just like mathematics and physics in later generations often see full marks in papers, but basically they have never seen anyone who can get full marks in Chinese.

But after reading it, the two really felt that the writing was very insightful: "It deserves full marks!"

Zhang Baixi, as the Minister of Education, was very concerned about the content of the pedagogy exam. After hearing it, he leaned over, and after only a few glances, he exclaimed that it was excellent, and he took it up to read it carefully.

The more Zhang Baixi looked at it, the more frightened he became. In fact, he is currently studying the reform of the educational system, and what he is studying is almost what Li Yuwen wrote.

At that time, Zhang Baixi had submitted the "Regulations of the Imperial School", that is, the Renyin school system, and hoped to carry out educational reforms, but they were not able to implement them, and not many people knew about them.

Because Zhang Baixi is not good at gaining officialdom, he is obsessed with education.Although the Renyin educational system proposed by him was very close to the western modern education concept, it was not adopted because there were not many people supporting him in the DPRK and China.

It will not be until next year, 1903, that Zhang Zhidong, Zhang Baixi, and Rong Qing will jointly petition for the reform of the educational system, that is, the Guimao educational system.

The school system advocates Western-style education based on Japan, but on the basis of Zhang Baixi, the proportion of subjects has been modified, which greatly reduces the proportion of Western studies. Students mainly study a subset of classics and history.It can only be regarded as a transitional reform.

Moreover, if Zhang Zhidong hadn't personally performed the performance, I am afraid that the Guimao school system would have been difficult to implement.

Now that Zhang Baixi saw Li Yu's article, he really admired it very much, and wrote every word into his heart: "I also think it can be given a full score!"

The Minister of Management has spoken, so naturally there is no problem.

But the chapter on self-cultivation and righteousness is indeed only a poor sixteen points.

Although Lin Shu translated many famous works, he actually did not understand foreign languages, basically relying on others to translate them and polish them into Chinese.

So Yan Fu was mainly doing foreign language marking, and soon he also found an article written in pencil.

In fact, Yan Fu graded the papers very quickly, because there are too many blank papers in foreign languages, especially the papers of the Shi Xueguan, so there are not many foreign language topics.

If it is said that using a pencil to write self-cultivating scriptures and righteous articles is an act of courting death, then it is perfect for writing English.

At that time, people's brush writing habits were difficult to adapt to English horizontally from left to right. Even if they were forced to write, many of them were crooked and difficult to read.

On the contrary, Li Yu's English handwriting is as beautiful as a firefly in the dark night, which is too eye-catching.

Coupled with many years of learning English under modern education, Li Yu's English level is not low.Yan Fu has nothing to say, full marks!
As for the Japanese article, there are a few people who write better with a brush. After all, the writing habits of the Japanese are the same as those of China.

But Li Yu was not bad either, and still got a high score of 90.

Seeing that the few of them were elated when they saw the pencil writing, Ding Weiliang was unmoved. He had already seen Li Yu's answer sheet, but actually didn't want to read it at all, because these questions were as simple as breathing to him.

On the last day of examination, several people submitted the summary results one after another. The first batch of enrollment targets of the Jingshi University Hall was originally 100 students from the Shixue Hall plus 100 students from the Normal Hall.

But in the final result, only 55 people from the Shixue Hall passed the test, and 76 people from the Normal Hall passed the test.

Wu Rulun tentatively asked, "My lord, do you want to lower the standard and enroll at full capacity?"

Zhang Baixi seemed to have made up his mind: "No! Just recruit so many!"

Yes, the admission requirements have been lowered to such a low level, it cannot be lowered any further!
The final results were announced, and it was indeed Li Yu who ranked first.Although he failed in one subject, his scores in other subjects were too dazzling, and his overall score was undoubtedly ranked first.

Of course, Li Yu was the only one who failed the chapter on self-cultivation and righteousness, and he was also very dazzling.

Li Yu felt strange when he saw the list. It would be difficult to become the number one scholar of Peking University 100 years later, but now it is easy.

Looking back, Feng Zuxun, He Yujie, Wu Jinglian, Fan Xiren, Zhu Xianwen, and Ouyang Mouyuan were all high school.

A few people gathered at Dongxing Building again in the evening, and they ate and drank again with good wine and good food.

Li Yu asked, "Why did you only see the announcement of the list, but didn't mention when you will enroll?"

Fan Xiren was well-informed: "Of course it will take some time to enroll, but it will definitely start this year."

Li Yu nodded. Zhang Baixi and the others should be intensively studying various specific matters such as student admission, schooling, and teacher recruitment.

It was not easy to open a university in the late Qing Dynasty, and starting from scratch was the most difficult.

I have to say that Zhang Baixi's contribution is indeed great.Without the saplings he planted, it would be even more difficult for Cai Yuanpei and other presidents of Peking University in the future.

Li Yudao: "In the future, you will be alumni, take care of each other and support each other. I wish you all a bright future and let us revitalize Huaxia together!"

Feng Zuxun said: "Well said, from now on we have to be like Mr. Li Yu, let foreigners see what we Chinese look like!"

Everyone is very happy. After all, it is high school. Although they are not high school Jinshi, the future of the university is not necessarily worse than that of Jinshi, because their cognitive level has begun to slowly awaken, and this is the real killer.

(End of this chapter)