Chang Mo-chun (4 October 1883-30 January 1965), feminist, educator, and poet, was the first principal of the Shen-chou Girls School, principal of the Kiangsu First Girls Normal School, and was a member of the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang and of the Legislative and Executive yuans in China and in Taiwan.
Born into a gentry family in Hsianghsiang, Hunan, Chang Mo-chun grew up in an environment which provided her with a solid background in classical Chinese literature and a keen interest in contemporary political affairs. Both of her parents were scholars. Her father, Chang Po-ch'un, was a Hanlin scholar and official. Her mother, Ho I-hsiao, was a poet whose work was esteemed by T'an Yen-k'ai, the veteran governor of Hunan, who was himself a Hanlin scholar well-versed in poetry and classical literature. After receiving her early education at home under her mother's direction, Chang Mo-chun attended middle school at Nanking, where her father was serving as education commissioner under Tuan-fang, governor-general of Liangkiang during the last years of the Ch'ing period. While at Nanking, she also taught at the primary school attached to the Chin-ling yangcheng hsueh-t'ang and at the same time studied English at the Hui-wen Girls School. She became interested in political ideas through reading Ko-ming chün [revolutionary army] by Tsoujung (ECCP, II, 769) and Jen-hsueh [study in benevolence] by T'an Ssu-t'ung (ECCP, II, 702-5). The young Chang Mo-chun was influenced also by the progressive views of her father, who, though serving as an official of the imperial government, was sympathetic to the new ideas of nationalism. From Nanking, Chang Mo-chun went to Shanghai to attend the Wu-pen Girls School. There she read nationalistic journals such as Hsin Hu-nan [new Hunan journal], Tung-t''ing po [Tung-t'ing journal], and Che-chiangch'ao [the tides of Chekiang] and came into contact with members of the anti-Manchu movement. On the recommendation of Huang Hsing (q.v.), she joined the T'ung-meng-hui and was soon drawn into the secret work of the society in planning for revolution in Kiangsu and Chekiang. During this period she was associated with Ch'iu Chin (ECCP, I, 169-71), Chao Sheng (T. Po-hsien; 1881-1911), and other anti-Manchu revolutionary activists. After being graduated at the top of her class from the Wu-pen Girls School, Chang Mo-chun taught at the Kiangsu provincial Ts'ui-min Girls School and studied English at the Laura Haygood Normal School in Soochow with a view to continuing her education in the United States. Her political associates, however, persuaded her to remain in China: her contacts through her father with officials of the Ch'ing government provided an important channel for obtaining information useful to the revolutionary cause.
When the Wuchang revolt broke out in October 1911, Chang Mo-chim and her father played active roles in bringing about Soochow's declaration of independence from Manchu rule. Chang Po-ch'un served as general counsel in the office of Ch'eng Te-ch'uan, who became the military governor of Kiangsu, and Chang Mochun drafted and edited propaganda materials. She was also responsible for the Ta Han Pao [the great Han journal] of Kiangsu, published at Soochow, which carried her forceful and influential editorials.
Chang Mo-chim continued to be active in politics during the first years of the republican period. With a group of women associates, she organized the Society of Shen-chou [Chinese] Women for the Support of the Republic. Chang was elected director, and raised funds for the new provisional government which had been established in Nanking at the beginning of 1912—activities that gained the attention of Sun Yat-sen. Following the reorganization of the T'ung-meng-hui into the Kuomintang, Chang was appointed to work in the party's Shanghai headquarters as chief of the correspondence section. At the same time, Chang Mo-chun and the Society of Shen-chou Women played an active part in pressing for the recognition of women's rights and for the improvement of 6T women's education. To gain publicity, the group turned to journalism and launched the Shen-chou jih-pao [Shenchow daily]. The society also founded the Shen-chou Girls School, one of the pioneer private girls' schools in Shanghai. Chang was appointed the first principal in the fall of 1914, and she contributed greatly to building up its enrollment and expanding its faculty. In the years following, Yeh Ch'u-ts'ang, Yeh Sheng-t'ao, Hsieh Liu-i, and other prominent men taught there at her invitation. In 1918 the ministry of education sent Chang Mo-chun abroad to study Western educational methods. She went first to the United States. After inspecting schools and women's colleges in various places, she took the opportunity to study at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was elected president of the Chinese students' association in New York. At the end of the First World War, she went to Europe and, in the summer of 1919, toured England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland, paying special attention to social conditions and women's education. This trip was recorded in her Ou-Mei chiao-yü k'ao-ch'a lu [investigation of education in Europe and America]. On her way back to China she also visited Southeast Asia. Arriving in Shanghai in the winter of 1920, she resumed her duties as principal of the Shen-chou Girls School. Shortly thereafter the Kiangsu provincial government appointed her to head the Kiangsu First Girls Normal School. In the years following, until her resignation in 1927, Chang Mo-chim gained distinction for the school by improving the academic program, enlarging classes and the amount of equipment, and securing the services of prominent people as instructors. In an attempt to combat illiteracy, Chang Mo-chim, together with her friend Chu Ch'i-hui, the first wife of Hsiung Hsi-ling, launched a program of popular education by setting up special schools over a wide area and by offering evening instruction at her school for women and for children out of school. She also continued to work in the field of journalism, supervising the Shen-chou jih-pao and editing the weekly woman's section of the Shanghai Shih-pao [Shanghai times].
Chang Mo-chun's independence and devotion to her career during these years discouraged male admirers. In 1924, however, she married Shao Yuan-ch'ung (q.v.), the personable and intelligent confidential secretary to Sun Yat-sen. The marriage, which took place in September 1924 in Shanghai, with Yu Yu-jen officiating at the ceremony and Tai Chi-t'ao present as a matchmaker, attracted widespread attention and approval in China: Chang and her husband had similar backgrounds, combining Chinese classical training with advanced studies in the United States.
Chang Mo-chün remained active politically after her marriage. In 1927, when Shao Yuanch'ung was mayor of Hangchow, she served as director of the municipal education bureau and also as an education member of the Shanghai branch of the Central Political Council. The following year, they moved to Nanking to join the new National Government. Chang Mochün became, successively, a member of the special examinations committee of the Examination Yuan (1929), a member of the Legislative Yuan (1930), and, in the spring of 1931, an honorary editor on the Kuomintang party history compilation committee. In 1931 she was also a member of the examinations committee of the Examination Yuan.
From 1933 to 1935 Chang Mo-chün served on the supervisory committee of the Nanking municipal headquarters of the Kuomintang; then she was elected to membership on the Central Supervisory Committee of the party. In the spring of 1935, she and her husband made an extended trip through the northwest of China, visiting Shansi, Shensi, Kansu, Tsinghai, and Ninghsia. Their record of the trip, Hsi-pei lan-sheng [viewing the grandeur ofthe northwest], was published shortly afterward.
In December 1936, Shao Yuan-ch'ung, accompanying Chiang Kai-shek to Sian for conferences with Chang Hsueh-liang and Yang Hu-ch'eng (qq.v.), was shot and killed by snipers during a coup in which Chiang was captured. Shocked by the sudden loss of her husband, Chang Mo-chün withdrew from public life and returned to her mother's home in Hunan, where she devoted herself to caring for her children, studying poetry, and perfecting her calligraphy. In 1940 the National Government invited her to Chungking to serve in the Examination Yuan. Two years later, she was sent to inspect Kuomintang activities in Hunan province. Toward the end of the Sino-Japanese war, she served on the standing committee of the Central Supervisory Committee of the Kuomintang, on the Central Political Council, and on the codification committee of the Examination Yuan. During the postwar period, Chang Mo-chün was a member of the Examination Yuan in Nanking and an honorary editor of the national history institute. Following the Communist accession to power on the mainland, she went to Taiwan, where she was a member of the Examination Yuan and, concurrently, a member of the Central Supervisory Committee and the central appraisal committee of the Kuomintang. There her private life was saddened by the sudden death of her son, who died shortly after reaching adulthood. In 1957 she donated to the Government of the Republic of China in Taiwan more than 100 pieces of antique jade from her collection. Chang Mo-chün died at Taipei on 30 January 1965. She was survived by a daughter, Shao Ying-to, and one grandson.
张默君
原名:昭汉 西名:莎非亚
张默君(1883.10.4—1965.1.30),妇女活动家,教育家,诗人,神州女校第一任校长,江苏第一女子师范学校校长,国民党中央监察委员,行政院、立法院成员。
她出生在湖南湘乡一个士绅家庭,她的家庭环境使她对中国古典文学打下了结实基础,并对当代政事发生浓厚兴趣。她的父母都是学者,她的父亲张宝居是一个翰林和官吏,她母亲何逸肖是一个诗人,能诗善文的翰林、湖南督军谭延闿对何逸肖的诗作很推崇。
她早年在家中受母教,后去南京上中学,清代末年她父亲在两江总督端方手下任学政。在南京时,她还在金陵阳城学堂附属小学教书,同时又在汇文女校学英语。她读了邹容的《革命军》、谭嗣同的《仁学》后,对各种政治思想很感兴趣。年轻的张默君又受她父亲的进步观点的影响,她父亲虽是清朝官吏,但同情民族主义新思想。她由南京到上海进务本女校,又读了富有民族思想的《新湖南》、《洞庭波》、《浙江潮》等杂志,开始与反满运动的成员有所接触,经黄兴介绍加入了同盟会,从事筹划同盟会在江浙两省进行革命的秘密工作,与秋瑾、赵声及其他反满革命活动分子有了联系。
张默君以优异成绩毕业于务本女校后,在江苏省立粹明(译音)女校教书,又在苏州劳拉•海古德(译音)师范学校学英语,准备获得机会去美国留学。但她的从事政治活动的友辈劝她留在国内,以便她通过她父亲和清朝官吏接触,为革命事业得到有用的情报。
1911年武昌起义,张默君和她父亲在苏州脱离清廷统治宣告独立的过程起了积极作用,她父亲担任了江苏都督程德全的参军,张默君协助起草和编写宣传材料,并负责在苏州出版江苏《大汉报》,该报经常刊载她有声有色的社论。
民国初年,张默君在政治上仍很活跃,她会合了妇女界一些朋友组成“神州妇女”协会,她被选为会长,筹集经费支援1912年初在南京成立的临时政府。这些活动引起了孙逸仙的注意。同盟会改组为国民党后,张默君在国民觉上海总部负责通讯部工作。她和神州妇女会在争取女权、改革妇女教育等方面起了积极作用。为了争取群众,神州妇女会注重新闻宣传工作,创办了《神州日报》,设立了神州女校,这是上海第一个私人创办的女校。1914年秋张默君任第一任校长。她多方设法扩大学额,增聘师资。几年中,叶楚伧、叶圣陶、谢六逸等知名人士都曾由她邀请在那里教过书。
1918年,教育部派她出国考察西方教学法。她首先去美国,考察了美国的几个学校和女子学院后,趁机进了哥伦比亚大学教育学院学习,被选为纽约中国学生联合会主席。第一次世界大战结束,她去欧洲。1919年夏,遍游英、法、德、比、瑞士,特别注意各地社会情况和妇女教育。她的游历见闻载于《欧美教育考察录》。回国途中,她又到东南访问。1920年冬回到上海,继续担任神州女校校长,不久江苏省政府又任命她主持江苏第一女子师范学校。在她1927年辞去校长职务之前的几年之中,她提高该校学术水平,扩大班级,增添设备,聘请名师,学校办得很出色。为了消灭文盲,她和她的朋友、熊希龄的第一个妻子朱其慧着手进行普及教育工作,在广大地区为失学妇女和儿童创办专门学校,在她的师范学校还附设夜校。她继续在新闻界工作,主持《神州日报》,主编《上海时报》的每周妇女专刊。
张默君这几年的独立和献身精神,使一些爱慕她的男子不敢向她求婚。但是她于1924年和邵元冲结婚,邵元冲是孙逸仙的私人机要秘书。婚礼在1924年9月于上海举行,由于右任主婚,戴季陶作介绍人,这次婚礼引起了广泛注意和赞美。张默君和她丈夫的身世相仿,既受过旧学训练,又曾在美国深造。
结婚后,张默君在政治上仍很活跃。1927年,邵元冲任杭州市长,张默君担任市教育局长,同时又是中央政治会议上海分会的教育委员。第二年,他们迁往南京,参加新的国民政府的工作。张默君历任考试院特种考试委员会委员(1929),立法院委员(1930),1931年春任国民党党史编纂委员会名誉编辑,同时任考试院考选委员会委员。
1933—1935年,张默君任国民党南京市党部监察委员,又选为中央监察委员。1935年春,她和邵元冲遍历西北各省:陕西、山西、甘肃、青海、宁夏,游历见闻载于《西北览胜》一书,不久即出版。
1936年12月,邵元冲随从蒋介石去西安与张学良、杨虎城谈判时,在劫持蒋介石的变乱中中弹而死。张默君为突然失去丈夫而大为震惊,从此回到湖南娘家,不问政治,每日教育儿女,写诗习字而已。1940年,国民政府请她到重庆考试院任职。1942年又派她视察湖南党务。中日战争结束前,她选为国民党中央监察委员会常务委员会委员,中央政治会议委员,考试院法典委员会委员。
战后几年中,她是南京考试院委员,国史馆名誉编辑。共产党在大陆取得政权后,她到了台湾,仍任考试院委员兼国民党中央监察委员、中央评审委员。在台湾,她那刚成年的儿子突然夭折,使她很为忧伤。1957年她向台湾中华民国政府捐献了她毕生收藏的一百多方玉石。1965年1月30日,她死在台北,遗有女儿邵英多和她的外孙。