Education from Role Models

By Zheng Xinyi

“How did the scholarly couple Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang educate their daughter, Qian Yuan?” a journalist once asked Qian Jingru,whose grandfather, Qian Jihou,was the twin brother of Qian Jibo,Qian Zhongshu's father.

“They hardly ever had to worry about her,” Qian Jingru waved her hand as she replied, “Qian Yuan was so cute. You know, she was a sight for sore eyes.” Qian Yuan was two years older than Qian Jingru, and they played together while taking refuge in Shanghai against the backdrop of the escalating anti-Japanese War.

It was the first time Qian Yuan had been to China since her birth.When the whole family landed from their ocean trip, Qian Zhongshu headed straight for the National Southwest Associated University, while Yang Jiang arrived in Shanghai with their one-year-old daughter, staying alternatively at Qian's home or Yang's.

“She didn't know how to greet people, or even how to speak. She could only move sideways with both hands bracing against the wall, walking with a fast pace,”Yang Jiang expressed her guilt in describing Qian Yuan at that time in her prose collection We Three, “As her mother, I think I should be responsible for her weaknesses. I was too bookish to discipline her.” In fact, Yang was really just too busy to take care of her daughter because of her position as the principal and the third grade English teacher at Suzhou Zhenhua Middle School Shanghai Branch. Qian Yuan wished to play with her mother,but anytime she went to her mother, she always seemed to be grading a thick stack of papers. In response, little Qian Yuan would“stick out her small fat fist as if she was going to hit those papers,tears swelling up in her eyes.”

Regardless of her mother's lack of discipline on her, she was very self-disciplined. Shortly after her arrival in China, she contracted dysentery due to contaminated food. After that, she never touched what adults told her notto eat, and just remained seated in peace to the side, watching everybody eat. As she got a little older, she could climb up stairs to have fun with her cousin. There was a small desk, two small chairs,and the two kids would sit face to face. While the elder cousin sister read the two-volume primer Learning How to Read Based on Pictures, Qian Yuan listened carefully. Yang bought a copy for her when she learned that little Qian really loved reading. One night, the moment Yang was back home, she was asked to check out how “the round-headed” (Qian's nickname) read the book. Qian was holding the book upside down, but went over the page without making any mistakes. Her funny reading habit was formed from her daily practice—the book was placed between the two girls,with the elder cousin reading top down and Qian following her bottom up, upside down!

After Yang Yinhang, Yang Jiang's father, learned the story,he exclaimed, “She is such a lively case of photographic memory!” Qian was the apple of her grandfather's eye. She always slept on the same bed with him during afternoon naps, and used her grandfather's most treasured pillow. Even his own children,including Yang Jiang, never have the privilege of sharing the same bed with their father. When little Qian's parents took her back to their hometown Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Qian Fujiong (Qian Zhongshu's grandfather), Qian Jibo was surprised at Qian Yuan's talent,and gladly concluded that Qian Yuan was a born book lover in their family. Both her paternal and maternal grandfathers cherished her dearly.

Qian Zhongshu always said that Qian Yuan was as upright as her maternal grandfather and was an adamant educator like her paternal grandfather. His description was true, as could be demonstrated in two facts:Qian Yuan became an English professor at Beijing Normal University—as in Qian Jibo's own statement, acting as a teacher enlightening children had been the tradition in his family for generations. Qian Yuan once honestly claimed in a conference that her father didn't recommend a certain expert's works, just as her maternal grandfather once saw his name on the list of a welcome ceremony for a certain warlord, and he immediately made a public announcement to the newspaper that he didn't attend the ceremony.

Nevertheless, Qian Yuan probably most loved to follow her parents' examples. After she passed away, her friends recalled,“She never put on an arrogant air for her family background, but always felt grateful to her parents for their good examples. She told me a story about her education at home. When Qian was in junior middle school, one night there was a power outage in her home located in Zhongguancun. In the dark, her parents discussed poetry, to which Qian was so attracted that she came to believe ancient poetry was full of charm.The following day she started a poem collection by the Tangpoet Du Fu (712-770), but found the poems were not interesting as such. She asked her father about something beyond her understanding, but he replied,‘My silly little creature, how can a poem be explained!' Qian once said, ‘Whenever I had some problems with English,my father never answered my questions directly, but he would recommend a dictionary instead.I learned to solve problems and answer questions on my own.Unless I failed to work out the difficulty after consulting books,my father would not help me out.Therefore, I developed a habit of independent thinking during childhood.”

The article “In the Twilight Years—the Interview of Professor Yang Jiang, the Centenarian,”documented a series of questions and answers. Among them, one goes, “How do you define ‘a good education'?”

“As I see it, ‘a good education'should kindle students' interest and spontaneity, develop their motivation, and provide guidance for them to make constant improvement. In this way, students can become well educated, naturally and unconsciously. It is fundamentally important for parents to act as a role model, for educating by deeds is far more effective than by words.”

(From Global People, Issue 16,2018. Translation: Wang Wen)

1981年杨绛与钱钟书和钱瑗摄于三里河寓所 Yang Jiang (left), Qian Zhongshu (middle)and Qian Yuan (right) in their flat in Sanlihe in 1981

不言之教

文/郑心仪

“钱锺书和杨绛怎么教育钱瑗？”记者问过钱静汝，她的爷爷钱基厚与钱锺书的父亲钱基博是孪生兄弟。

“不用管，不用管，”钱静汝连连摆手，“钱瑗真的乖，大家都喜欢她。”钱瑗比钱静汝大两岁，两人在上海避难时曾一起玩耍。

那是钱瑗出生后第一次回国。钱锺书一上岸就直赴昆明西南联大，杨绛带着1岁多的钱瑗来到上海，有时挤居钱家，有时挤居杨家。

“不会叫人，不会说话，走路只会扶着墙横行，走得还很快。这都证明我这个书呆子妈妈没有管教。”在《我们仨》里，杨绛回忆起钱瑗刚回国时的模样，掩不住地自责。但回国后，杨绛也没有更多工夫去管教钱瑗。她被派去做上海振华分校的校长，还兼任高三的英文教师，格外忙碌。钱瑗盼着跟妈妈玩，只能晚上趴在桌边看她改大沓课卷，看着看着，“就含着一滴小眼泪，伸出个嫩拳头，作势打课卷”。

妈妈不管自己，钱瑗就自己管自己。她回国不久就吃坏了肚子，得了痢疾。只要大人告诉她什么东西不能吃，她就不吃，看着大家吃，一个人乖乖坐在旁边玩。再大一点，钱瑗就会自己爬楼梯找表姐玩。一张小桌子，两只小椅子，两个孩子面对面坐着，表姐读上下两册《看图识字》，钱瑗就旁听。杨绛看钱瑗这么喜欢，也为她买了两册。结果一天晚上，杨绛一回家，就被叫去，“快来看圆圆头念书”。钱瑗把杨绛买的书倒过来拿，却从头念到底，一字不错。原来，她每天坐在小表姐对面旁听，认的全是颠倒的字。

杨绛的父亲杨荫杭知道了这件事，对杨绛说：“过目不忘是有的。”钱瑗特别得外公疼爱，午睡时总和外公睡一张床，还枕着外公特别宝贝的小耳枕。要知道，杨绛姊妹兄弟，没有一个和杨荫杭一床睡过。钱锺书祖父钱福炯百岁冥寿时，钱锺书、杨绛带着钱瑗回到无锡老家。这次家人相聚，钱基博惊奇地发现，钱瑗是“吾家读书种子”，得意非凡。爷爷、外公都对钱瑗格外疼爱。

钱锺书总说女儿“刚正，像外公；爱教书，像爷爷”。此话应无错：钱基博曾自述做蒙师是家传，钱瑗生前就在北京师范大学英语系做教授；杨荫杭曾在欢迎某军阀的名单上看到自己的名字，立即登报声明自己没有参与欢迎，钱瑗亦在某会议上直言父亲并没有推荐某专家的著作。

但钱瑗大概最想自己像的，该是爸爸与妈妈。她去世后，友人曾回忆起这样一段往事：“她从不以家庭背景骄人，只是非常感激父母给她的不言之教。我听钱瑗讲过她在家受教的生动故事：她读初中时，家住在中关村。有个晚上停电，父母就坐在黑地里谈论诗文。钱瑗在一旁听得入迷：‘我当时想，古诗这么有味道，第二天便找一本杜诗来读。读读，好像也不那么有劲。有不懂的，去问爸爸，爸爸却说：诗哪是好讲的？去去去去！我读英文也是这样，有问题去问爸爸，爸爸从不直接回答，总是推给我许多许多本字典，叫我自己去查。查查，查到一半也就找到答案了。有时实在书都翻遍了，还是不明白，再问爸爸，爸爸才告诉我。所以，我从小养成独立学习的习惯。’”

在《坐在人生的边上——杨绛先生的百岁答问》中，有这样一组问答：

“您认为怎样的教育才算‘好的教育’？”

“我体会，‘好的教育’首先是启发人的学习兴趣、学习的自觉性，培养人的上进心，引导人们好学和不断完善自己。要让学生在不知不觉中受教育，让他们潜移默化。这方面的榜样作用很重要，言传不如身教。”

（摘自《环球人物》2018年第16期）