莽莽高原上,悠悠碧草心

Photo courtesy of Ren Jizhou's interviewee

[The people need such an educator (8)]

Another year of green trees and the sound of cicadas, Ren Jizhou ushered in the 100th summer of his life. Despite his limited vision in both eyes, he still insisted on working 5 hours a day. He still has a career that he has not yet completed, and Nianzi is worried about learning after the grass industry in Zi, and he always wants to do something more.

Ren Jizhou, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, honorary dean and professor of the College of Grassland Agricultural Science and Technology of Lanzhou University. He established the theory and methodology of modern grass science, created the discipline framework and teaching system of grass science, founded the first grass teaching and research institution, and trained a large number of grass science professionals. At the age of nearly 90, he pioneered the study of agricultural ethics in China. He has devoted his savings to cultivate talents, and has donated nearly 7 million yuan to education over the years, and will be selected as a "National Model of Teaching and Educating People" in 2023.

In 1924, Ren Jizhou was born in Pingyuan County, Shandong Province. Having experienced the shattering of mountains and rivers and witnessed the withering of people's livelihood, he worked hard since he was a child, studied hard all night, and was determined to serve the country with knowledge, and was later admitted to the National Central University with high scores, majoring in animal husbandry.

In 1950, at the recommendation of Professor Wang Dong and the invitation of Mr. Sheng Tongsheng, a veterinarian, Ren Jizhou and his wife traveled all the way from Nanjing to Lanzhou, and since then they have taken root in the northwest to study the grassland. Before leaving, Wang Dong gave him a couplet: establish a heart for heaven and earth, and establish a life for the people; Living with cattle and sheep, and traveling with deer and pigs. This encouragement has become a footnote to his life of struggle.

The bitter cold of the northwest did not deter Ren Jizhou, on the contrary, he was full of expectations for this vast land. "Gansu straddles the Yangtze River, the Yellow River and inland river basins, and is the confluence of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Loess Plateau, and the northwest inland desert. Some people feel bitter about this and that, but I don't feel bitter at all. Nature is a laboratory, and there is no substitute for it. ”

Ren Jizhou couldn't wait to start a field expedition, traveling all over the grassland pastoral areas of Gansu and Ningxia, and every year he would run a pair of suede shoes. In 1954, he wrote the "Huangchengtan and Damaying Grassland Survey Report" published, which became one of the first grassland survey monographs in New China.

In order to locate and study and systematically understand the law of grassland changes, he set up a tent in Mayinggou at an altitude of 3,000 meters in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County and began to observe at the site. "The moonlit night is clear and bright all over the mountain beams, and the lonely tent by the stream is full of blue light. At night, I heard the wolf howling and spread the wilderness, and in the morning, I saw the bear trail around the tent. Smoke billowed and the wind pierced through clothes. A thin tent lives in the snow, hungry and cold without fear of bears and wolves. He described the situation in poetry.

Starting from a tent, it has become the first alpine grassland positioning test station in the mainland - Gansu Tianzhu Alpine Grassland Experimental Station, and the first in the country to carry out research on alpine grassland improvement.

In the early days of the station, Ren Jizhou taught in Lanzhou for the first 3 days of the week, and worked at the experimental station for the next 4 days. From Mayinggou to the train station, the mountain road is winding and rugged, the river is cold and biting, he got up at 4 a.m. to catch the train, and never delayed his teaching work.

In 1995, Ren Jizhou was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Some universities and scientific research institutions at home and abroad have handed him olive branches, and he declined them one by one: "The Institute of Grassland Ecology is in Lanzhou, and I am in Lanzhou, and I will not go anywhere." ”

On scientific research, Ren Jizhou has been fruitful; In terms of educating people, he has made outstanding contributions. He took the lead in formulating the "Training Program for Postgraduate Students Pursuing a Master's Degree in Grassland Science" and the "Requirements for Postgraduate Training for Doctoral Degree in Grassland Science", which played a fundamental role in improving the overall training quality of postgraduate students in grassland science in mainland China. The teaching plan of grassland is proposed with grassland survey and planning, grassland cultivation, grassland protection, forage cultivation, forage breeding and other professional courses as the core, "grassland investigation and planning" was selected as a national excellent course, and the topic of "grassland science discipline design and talent training system construction" won the special prize of the national teaching achievement award......

"In 1972, when I went to Gansu Agricultural University to study, Mr. Ren gave us the first lecture that did not talk about professional knowledge, but about what grassland science is for and what is the use of learning, which is probably equivalent to the current professional introduction. He spoke vividly and interestingly, and I strongly felt the profound cultural heritage of grassland studies. Nan Zhibiao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Lanzhou University, recalled.

Ren Jizhou believes that teaching and educating people is the first day of a teacher's job. He has devoted himself to the teaching of grass industry with a solid scientific research foundation, and has systematized relevant knowledge through professional teaching and improved it to a new theoretical level. For each lecture, he prepares for at least 8 hours, requiring himself to give lectures with concise language, clear logic, clear focus, and integration of theory with practice. During class, he was dressed in formal clothes and stood upright, which he said was a sign of respect for students.

He asked students to go to the ranch for their papers and research.

"I finished my doctoral dissertation on the ranch. Today, Mr. Ren has built grassland experiment stations all over the country, and students are going to farm for internships. In doing so, Mr. Ren wants to cultivate people who have feelings for the land. Hou Fujiang, a professor at the College of Grassland Agricultural Science and Technology of Lanzhou University, said.

He encouraged students to go to the front line and use scientific research to solve practical problems.

"Mr. Ren is always concerned about my scientific research progress and suggests that in addition to doing scientific research in the laboratory, I should also go to the fields more often to understand the problems encountered by farmers and herdsmen in actual production, and return to the laboratory with the problems," said Zhang Jinlin, a professor at Lanzhou University's College ......of Grassland Agricultural Science and Technology. Keeping in mind his teachings, in the past two years, he has started new research to try to use plant rhizosphere growth-promoting bacteria for the restoration of degraded grasslands and the construction of agro-ecosystems.

Ren Jizhou cares for the younger generations and takes care of everything.

In the era when mobile phones and computers were not yet popular, some students wrote to him, hoping to follow him to study for a doctorate, and soon received a handwritten reply from Ren Jizhou, which listed the subjects of the doctoral examination in detail. Not long after, I received a second registered letter, specifically stating that the previous letter was incorrect, and that any exam in mathematics and plant physiology was sufficient......

Ren Jizhou, who has a strong sense of time, arranges a schedule for himself every day and completes it meticulously. This habit of cherishing time like gold and being diligent and self-disciplined has been maintained to this day. The assistant Xu Gang has followed him for many years, and often heard him say that the gap in work results comes from 8 hours away, and the time at work is far from enough, and the time after work must be used reasonably.

"As a student, I feel that Mr. Ren has always come up with the topic, and we do research, and it seems that there is no time to spare, often just after completing a task, a new task comes. At that time, I felt very tired, but after the results came out, I felt a sense of accomplishment, and I admired Mr. Ren very much! Hu Zizi, a professor at Gansu Agricultural University, sighed with emotion.

On one side is the vast grassland, and on the other side is the three-foot podium. With more than 70 years of teaching, Ren Jizhou has cultivated a number of backbone forces in the fields of scientific research, teaching and management for the grassland industry in mainland China, more than 50 people have been hired as senior professional and technical positions in grassland majors, and more than 20 people have become doctoral supervisors.

From paying attention to the national physique in the early years, to proposing "storing grain in grass", trying to transform the agricultural structure, and then to proposing and advocating correct agricultural ethics, Ren Jizhou's thinking has never stopped.

In 2018, "Introduction to Agricultural Ethics in China" was published; In 2021, the textbook "Introduction to Agricultural Ethics in China" was published; Under his leadership, Lanzhou University established a teaching and research team on agricultural ethics, which became a compulsory course for students majoring in agriculture.

"100 years old and 36,000 days, endure loneliness and coldness. Reverently abide by my Hongyi ambition, spring and autumn are natural. In the year of expectation, Ren Jizhou wrote this little poem to encourage himself. At the 4th General Assembly of the Agricultural Ethics Research Association of the Chinese Grass Industry Society held in 2023, he delivered a video speech: "As a centenarian, I vow to do my best for a limited number of years. But he was unable to do anything, and he had come to the edge of life. In the future, the heavy responsibility will be carried out by all the monarchs here, as well as several generations of descendants of these monarchs, from generation to generation, striving to move forward, step by step, to the end that is still invisible...... Please, gentlemen! Reach the new realm of ecological civilization as soon as possible! ”