The Institute of History and Philology of the National Academia Sinica in Guangzhou is often referred to as a pioneer, but the contribution of The Institute of History and Philology of the BaiYuan in Dongshan, Guangzhou, to the humanities in China cannot be summed up by the word 'pioneer'.

　　I. Part-time and full-time

　　On 9 June 1927, it was decided to establish the Preparatory Office of Academia Sinica, and on 4 July, the National Government promulgated the Organic Law of the Academy, and on 1 October, Cai Yuanpei was appointed President of the Academy. The year began with the establishment of four research institutes: the Institute of Physical and Chemical Industry, the Institute of Social Sciences, the Institute of Geology and the Observatory. the meeting also elected the preparatory members of each institute.

　　On April 10, 1928, the National Government amended the organizational regulations of the Academia Sinica and changed the name of the Academia Sinica to the National Academia Sinica, appointing Cai Yuanpei as its president on April 23. On October 31, the National Government promulgated the Organic Law of the National Academies, which was directly under the Republican Government. (Quoted from "Cai Yuanpei's Autobiography" published in Taipei in 1967 and "The Complete Works of Cai Yuanpei" published by China Bookstore in 1988)

　　On 22 January 1929, the Secretary of the Institute of History and Philology, Fu Sinian, who was acting as Director, replied to Luo Changpei's official letter: "Mr. Xintian: I am grateful for the change of appointment of Mr. Huinuo as a researcher. I have also been shown a personal work plan and a work plan for the study of rhyming books，which I read with admiration. I have already passed them on to Zhao Yuanren, and I agree with all of them. From now on, the rhyming book is organized, and the study of the Cantonese language will definitely borrow from you in order to brighten our Institute." (Quoted in Fu Sinian's Posthumous Notes, Beijing: Social Science Literature Press, 2011)

　　On 30 January 1929 Cai Yuanpei wrote to Fu Sinian: " Brother Meng Zhenwu please read the letter: It is gratifying to see that the Institute of History and Philology has been sending out various publications. However, the Institute has moved out of Sun Yat-sen University , and yet the journal has the words Sun Yat-sen University on it, so perhaps it had not yet left Zhongshan University  at the time of publication.

　　As can be seen from the above text, from October 3, Cai Yuanpei was no longer a part-time but a full-time leader, and leaders took the lead to be full-time, which means that in today's words they cannot earned amateur income, and civil servants cannot be paid for holding positions in associations and other organisations. what was Mr Gu Jie Gang doing on October 3, 1928? The Diary records that he was at home writing the language of the text for the 49th issue of the publication Spring and Autumn Scriptures, and then went to the Wenming Road School. For his part, Yung Siu-chu came twice to help his colleagues buy ferry tickets. He prepared his lessons in the evening and later visited Ding Shan's and Luo Changpei's homes. On Saturday 6 October, Mr. and Mrs. Rong Zhaozu invited Mr. and Mrs. Gu Jie-gang to their home for dinner, went to the Shuangmendi to buy books, and went to the Zhongshan Theatre in Xiguan to see the film "The willow is dark and the flower is bright". Fu Sinian's apartment on Chunyuan Road, but did not meet him.

　　He then went to the Wenming Road School to deliver handouts and archives and returned to his home in Dongshan, where he met colleagues such as Fu Sinian, Rong Zhaozu and Luo Changpei and had dinner together.

　　Gu Jie's diary states that "Meng Zhen has become the director of the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica, so the director of the Institute of Philology and History at Sun Yat-sen University must resign. He is busy with his classes and will never do it." It is estimated that at the dinner table Fu Sinian conveyed the spirit of the important instructions from his superiors that he could not work part-time, and Gu Jie-gang's attitude was clear that he would not act in accordance with the leader's intentions. But the ideological consciousness is high did not give up the burden.

　　On the morning of October 21, he was at his home on the 2nd Floor of No. 10, Qiming Si Ma Road, Dongshan, Guangzhou, writing a postscript for Ren Guorong's "Two Months of Observation in Yao Shan". Huang Zhongqin came to see Jie Gang, and together they went to Fu Sian's home on the first floor of No. 104, Chunyuan, Qianjie, Dongshan Compassionate Courtyard, for a meeting to study the affairs of the Central Research Institute, and then together they went to see the house at No. 35, Park Garden, Compassionate Courtyard. Fortunately, we all lived in Dongshan, so it was easy to walk to and from the school. (The address is quoted from the "Arts Staff List" compiled in December 1927 in the Guangdong Provincial Archives, File No. 020-003-73163) According to Gu Jie's Diary, he went to the Wenming Road School on 25 October 1928 and returned to the meeting in  Baiyuan in Dongshan, where Fu Sian recommended Gu Jie to be the director of the text book examination team. "I asked for three hundred yuan for office expenses to be at my disposal, and today I would not have gone, but Meng Zhen sent someone to invite me, so I had to go." On December 15, 1928, Gu Jie-gang completed the work plan of the Cultural Records and Research Group of the Institute of History and Philology of the National Academia Sinica, in which he prepared to resign and return to the north next spring to take up the work of the group exclusively, and the office of the group was to begin in February of the following year. "After the promise, my sense of gratitude is immense." This is how you know that this month Gu Jie Gang changed his mind. On 18 April 1929, Fu Snr wrote to Yang Hengfo,  "Gu Jie gang As he has not been able to resign at Sun Yat-sen University, please change his appointment to a special appointment".". In reality, Gu Jie-gang said his farewell to both institutions for good in February 1929.

The picture shows the back of the entrance to the Bai Yuan as seen from the compound, taken on 28 February 2022.

　　In January 1929, Mr Luo Changpei, who also worked at the university, resigned from his teaching post at Sun Yat-sen University and became a full-time researcher.He has since done much pioneering work in phonetics, minority languages and dialect surveys. In his "Contribution of the Jesuits to Phonology", written in Beiping on 18 October 1929, which was actually completed in Guangzhou, Luo Changpei explained in his "Postscript to the Remnants of the Collection of Sound and Rhyme Tongran", completed on 28 April 1929, that ""In the spring of this year, I was able to find a roughly coherent list of the Roman characters used by the Jesuits of the Ming Dynasty, such as Matteo Ricci and Giannico." "I have therefore repeatedly written a brief summary of the evolution of the antiphonology, and have written it at the end of this article." This text is pioneering. After the founding of New China, he set up the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and became its first director.

　　In fact the earliest Collected Works《集刊》 were supported by the contributions of teachers at Sun Yat-sen University. Cai Yuanpei's letter to the publication sent to him by Fu Sinian was called the Institute of History and Philology, but then Cai asked how he saw the words Sun Yat-sen University. The actual January 1929 publication was only one issue, the first book and the first cent, Ding Shan's 《数名古谊》 written in March 1928, Yu Yongliang's article written in November 1927, Dong Zubin's article written in the summer of 1924 old work, a closer look at the words no Sun Yat-sen University. The only one that Fu Sinian may have sent was the Sun Yat-sen University Language and History Weekly.

　　Many of  academic mainstays of Sun Yat-sen University's liberal arts professors and the founders of the Institute of History and Philology came from Xiamen University's Institute of Chinese Studies, which began to propose the use of modern scientific methods to organize China's inherent culture. The Research Department comprises the Language and Philology Group, the Literature Group, the History and Archaeology Group, the Philosophy Group and the Art and Music Group. Many of the professors of Arts at Sun Yat-sen University were transferred from Xiamen University, a history that is less well known, and Mr Ding Shan was one of them. On 10 October 1926, Lin Yutang became the head of the Department of Chinese Language and prepared the Institute of Chinese Studies at Xiamen University, with the leading professor holding both positions. Gu Jiegang, Rong Zhaozu, Luo Changpei and Ding Shan, who later established the Institute of History and Philology in Guangzhou, all taught at Xiamen University and conducted research at the Institute of Chinese Studies. e earliest participants in the Guangzhou Dongshan Institute of History and Philology, Yu Yongliang and Yang Yunru, also from Xiamen University, were hired in September 1926 for the Special Department of National Studies at the Jimei School, which was co-operated with Xiamen University in 1927. (Quoted from the Centenary History of Jimei School) Mr. Chen Jiageng's business was in financial difficulties, and on 11 February 1927, Chen Jiageng sent a telegram to Xiamen University to suspend the Institute of Chinese Studies and the Arts. (Quoted in History of the Chinese Department of Xiamen University, published by Xiamen University Press in 2021)

　　In 1928, Ding Shan was introduced to Sun Yat-sen University by Lu Xun, and in his Forty Prefaces he wrote: "By the two years I was in Guangdong, I was most influenced by Mr. Gu Jie-gang in terms of the changes in my studies and my gradual entry into the study of history." On 16 May 1929, Ding Shan wrote to Fu Sinian about the work on the Dictionary of Scripture and Literature, which he had begun on 19 December last year, with the help of Tan Shunqing, Huang Airu and Li Huahai (quoted in Su (quoted in "The hand-planted heather has become a shade - Fu Sian and the Institute of History of the Academia Sinica", Taipei: Taiwan Student Book Co.)

　　The information received from the correspondence is that Ding Shan was still at BaiYuan as of 16 May, with several assistants working alongside the secretary. The Collected Works is the way in which the results of the Institute's research are represented, and Mr Ding Shan was quite diligent, with two articles written in Dongshan, Guangzhou, in March 1928 and 6 May 1928 published in the first issue of the Institute's Collected Works, the inaugural issue accounting for two of the eight articles. One article in the second division, the article on 《召穆公传》 published in the first division of the second book in May 1930 was already the fourth article, and the article published in the third division of the third book was written at Shandong University in Qingdao on 22 April 1934. In 1932 Ding Shan left the Institute to teach at Central University, and the Forty Self-Preface ----《四十自序》 written on 15 October 1940 reads, " Unable to overcome Fu's overriding pressure, he returned to teach at Central University in three courses on the history of Chinese historiography, the history of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the study of ancient artifacts." According to Fu's correspondence, on 24 June 1932 he wrote to Ding Shan and reappointed him as a special researcher. Ding Shan soon moved on to teach at Shandong University. Ding Shan's last book was Ancient Myths and Peoples, a collection of articles from the Collected Works of the Institute of History and Philology and the Journal of the Institute of National Studies of Qilu University, written in 1948 with a preface explaining the key ideas of the work, and Mr. Ding Shan died on 18 January 1952.

　　Ethnographic and anthropological research was also one of the ideas that sustained the Collected Works by teachers at Sun Yat-sen University, the highest quality of which included several folklore investigation reports written by the Sun Yat-sen University Biological Collection Team in the Yao Mountains of Beijiang. Pang Xinmin's 'Miscellaneous Notes on the Yao Mountains of Beijiang, Guangdong', completed on 2 October 1930, was published in the fourth part of the second volume of the Collected Works in 1931; Pang Xinmin's 'Miscellaneous Notes on the Investigation of the Yao Mountains of Guangxi', completed in December 1931; Jiang Zhefu's "An Account of the Jiao-festival of the Yao People in the Arable Cave of the Yao Mountains in Beijiang, Guangdong", "The Worship of the King" by Jiang Zhefu, Zhang Kai and Pang Xinmin, published in the first part of the fourth book of October 1932, plus Yang Chengzhi's "Paraphrase of Luo Luo Taishang Qingjing and Anti-inflammatory Sutra", dated 20 February 1931 "Published in 1933 in the second division of the fourth book, all scholarly masterpieces published in the Collected Works.In January 1939, the Institute of History and Philology received a commission to provide principles for the correction of the insect and dog sides for ethnic minorities in order to avoid discrimination, and Mr. Rui Yifu was in charge of this project. This method was promulgated by the National Government on 18 September 1940. On 12 August 1940, Mr. Rui Yifu wrote an article entitled 'An examination of the naming of the worm and dog side of the minority in southwest China', in which he describes the investigation of the Guangxi Yao Mountains by the biological collection team of Sun Yat-sen University, including Pang Xinmin's 'Miscellaneous Notes on the Investigation of the Guangxi Yao Mountains', nine years earlier. The results of the investigation of the story of the "Pan Yao" are informative. The most important journal mentioned in the Correction of the Nomenclature of the Minorities of Southwest China is the Weekly Journal of the Institute of Language and History, Sun Yat-sen University, in addition to the Collected Journals of the Institute of History and Philology. (Quoted from the first series of Asian Nationalities Series, published by the Institute of History, Academia Sinica, 1978)

　　On 4 July 1928, the Institute of Philology and History of National Sun Yat-sen University published a special issue on the study of the ethnic groups of the southwest, with articles by Yu Yongliang, Yang Chengzhi and other Sun Yat-sen University teachers who also held positions in the Institute of Philology and History , as well as research and survey articles by young teachers from the Institute of Philology and History, such as Ren Guorong and Shi Siutong, who had already done pioneering work. On 28 January 1929, Gu Jie-gang wrote in his postscript to a single volume of Mr. Ren's research report on Yaoshan: "We at Sun Yat-sen University, based in Guangzhou, have an indispensable responsibility for the study of the ethnic groups of the southwestern provinces. The situation in this area is so complicated! Only now do we realise that this is a great treasure for research and learning, and so the burden of a thousand pounds is placed on our shoulders!"

　　Zhao Yuanren's survey of the dialects of the two Cantoneses, conducted as a researcher at the Institute of History and Philology, began with preparations in September 1928, arrived in Guangzhou on 10 November and left Guangzhou on 4 February 1929, spending nearly three months in Guangdong. Mr Shi Shenghan of the Department of Biology at Sun Yat-sen University at the time offered his help in assisting Yao compatriot Zhao Guangrong in filling out a Yao song for him, recording 197 Yao songs using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Zhao Yuanren's later publication, Zhongshan Dialect, Preface to the Taishan Corpus, and even the special commentary on the Taishan Corpus, Zhongshan Dialect, published in 1951, were based on material collected in the winter of 1929 (sic, should be understood as the winter of 1928 January 1929) and also state that the pronouncer in Zhongshan County was Cheng Weizheng, according to the Chronology of Zhao Yuanren, dated 1929 On 30 January, when he returned to Guangzhou from Macao, he passed through Shiqi to collect Zhongshan language materials, and on 12 January he went to Jiangmen, Xinhui and Taishan to collect materials, and returned to Guangzhou on 1 February.

The picture shows the columns of the joint entrance to the east and west blocks of BaiYuan, taken on 28 February 2022.

　　（to be continued）

　　(All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from Nan Yue Ancient Post Road Network.)