2016
錢存訓先生千古
,著名漢學家錢存訓教授在美國芝加哥逝世,享年105歲。
錢教授和中文大學出版社結緣甚久。他最廣為人知的Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginning of Chinese Books and Inscriptions,一書於由芝加哥大學出版社出版,甫一問世,便銷售一空,後來更成為歐美學界這一領域的教科書。中文譯本旋即跟進,最早的中文譯本於由香港中文大學出版部(本社的前身)出版,題名為《中國古代書史》(又名為《書於竹帛》)。,錢教授又一部力作《中國書籍、紙墨及印刷史論文集》再次由本社出版。時隔近20年後的,錢教授的英文論著Collected Writings on Chinese Culture亦在本社出版。
錢教授一生學問得益於中西方各自的充分學術訓練,他以古代書籍出版和目錄體系入手,關注在東西方社會結構的比較和交流上,用力深廣,眼界高遠。
他的逝世,是學術界的重大損失。本社敬撰輓聯一副,遙寄哀思:
辨章學術,考鏡源流,石渠甘對圖書老。
孰不有古,南山峨峨,著書消日海西頭。
錢存訓先生千古
https://chineseupress.com/index-php_route_articles/article_article_id_92.html
Ken Su :
《漢學研究通訊》第34卷第3期
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時間 2015年8月出版單位 臺北:漢學研究中心內容簡介 【漢學人物】 百五人瑞,錢存訓先生一生行述(許倬雲) 錢存訓教授著述編年(潘銘燊) 錢存訓先生年表(錢孝文) |
訪錢存訓教授談 國書籍史之研究及治 方法 - 漢學研究中心
ccs.ncl.edu.tw/Newsletter_85/P026_033.pdf
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26 漢學研究通訊22 : 1(總85 期)民國92 年2 月. 錢存訓教授, 年出生於江蘇. 省泰縣,南京金陵大學文學士,美國. 芝加哥大學碩士、博士。曾任南京金. 陵女子大學圖書 ...Translate this page
TH Tsien, Scholar of Chinese Written Word, Dies at 105
New York Times - 5 hours ago
T. H. Tsien, a scholar of Chinese books and printing who in 1941 risked his life to smuggle ...
T. H. Tsien was one of the world’s renowned scholars of Chinese bibliography and paleography, the study of ancient writing.CreditUniversity of Chicago
T. H. Tsien, a scholar of Chinese books and printing who in 1941 risked his life to smuggle tens of thousands of rare volumes to safety amid the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, died on April 9 at his home in Chicago. He was 105.
His death was announced by the University of Chicago, with which he had been associated since the late 1940s. At his death, he was an emeritus professor of East Asian languages and civilizations there and an emeritus curator of the university’s East Asian library.
One of the world’s most renowned scholars of Chinese bibliography and paleography — the study of ancient writing — Professor Tsien (pronounced chee-AHN) was the author of scores of books and articles, many in English, about the august history of the written word in China. As he was fond of reminding people, movable type originated in Chinacenturies before Gutenberg.
Professor Tsien, who was born in China in the twilight of the reign of its last emperor, was a young librarian there during the Japanese occupation, which lasted from 1931 until the end of World War II. Working in secret, he was charged with keeping a trove of precious volumes, some dating to the first millennium B.C., from falling into the occupiers’ hands.
The Library of Congress in Washington agreed to take some 30,000 volumes, but the difficulty lay in getting them out of Shanghai. By 1941, the city’s harbor and customs office were under the control of the Japanese, who would have seized the books and very likely destroyed them. Had Professor Tsien’s work been uncovered, he would almost certainly have been executed.
Determined to get the books out of China at all costs, Professor Tsien could not have done so, he later wrote, had it not been for a turn of fate.
Tsuen-hsuin Tsien was born on Dec. 1, 1909, in the Jiangsu Province of eastern China. As a youth, he edited a student publication advocating the overthrow of the warlords who since the 1910s had been savagely partitioning the country. Soon afterward, he and his teacher were arrested by a local warlord’s henchmen.
Young Mr. Tsien was released; the teacher was executed. Mr. Tsien joined the Nationalist Army, which in 1928 helped defeat the warlords, unifying China.
At the University of Nanking (now Nanjing), Mr. Tsien studied Chinese and Western history and library science, earning an undergraduate degree in 1932. He later went to work in the Nanjing branch of China’s national library.
In 1937, at grave risk, Mr. Tsien fled Nanjing with more than a dozen family members just before the Japanese massacre there. The massacre, known ever after as the Rape of Nanking, resulted in the killing of more than 300,000 civilians and the raping of more than 80,000 women. Settling in Shanghai, he joined the national library’s branch there.
In the wake of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, some 60,000 rare books, among China’s foremost cultural treasures, had been moved from Beijing to Shanghai for safekeeping. After Japan seized Shanghai in 1937, the books — including those Mr. Tsien would smuggle out of China — were secreted in the city’s French Concessionand International Settlement.
Long-term plans for the volumes were essential, but the question remained: How to get them past customs?
Mr. Tsien agonized over the problem for the next few years. Then, in 1941, an old schoolmate of his wife’s came for a visit. The schoolmate had a brother who happened to be a customs agent. Mr. Tsien recruited the agent to his cause.
Covertly packing 30,000 of the books into 102 wooden crates, Mr. Tsien labeled them, on the agent’s advice, as new books purchased by the Library of Congress. In the guise of a bookseller, he created false invoices to accompany the shipments.
The crates left the Port of Shanghai a few at a time, moving through customs when Mr. Tsien’s confederate was on duty. The last one left China on Dec. 5, 1941, two days before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
At the Library of Congress, the books were microfilmed for posterity — an enterprise, entailing more than a thousand rolls of film, that has made them accessible to scholars worldwide.
In 1947, Mr. Tsien was dispatched to the United States to retrieve the books. But the outbreak of civil war between China’s Communists and its ruling Nationalists precluded his returning home.
Accepting an invitation from the University of Chicago library to catalog its Chinese holdings, he went on to earn a master’s degree in library science from the university in 1952, followed by a Ph.D. in library science and East Asian studies there in 1957. Over the coming decades, Professor Tsien built the university’s collection of East Asian books into one of the foremost in the United States.
Professor Tsien’s wife, Wen-ching Hsu Tsien, died in 2008, as did a daughter, Ginger Tsien. His survivors include two other daughters, Mary Tsien Dunkel and Gloria Tsien; a sister, Cunrou Qian; a brother, Cunxue Qian; and two step-grandchildren.
His books include “A History of Writing and Writing Materials in Ancient China” (1975); “Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions,” published in a revised edition in 2004; and “Collected Writings on Chinese Culture” (2011).
Among his laurels is the Distinguished Service Award from the National Library of China, which he received in 1999. In 2007, Nanjing University opened the T. H. Tsien Library, seeded with thousands of volumes from his personal collection.
The books Professor Tsien rescued from Shanghai were given to Taiwan by the United States in the mid-1960s. They remain there, housed at the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Professor Tsien tried for years to have them returned to the national library in Beijing, but because of historical tensions between Taiwan and mainland China he was never able to do so.
In interviews, Professor Tsien was sometimes asked why he assumed so grave a risk to smuggle books out of China. His reply was simple.
“It was my duty,” he said.
Correction: April 19, 2015
An earlier version of a summary that appeared with this obituary on the home page of NYTimes.com referred incorrectly to T.H. Tsien as a woman.
An earlier version of a summary that appeared with this obituary on the home page of NYTimes.com referred incorrectly to T.H. Tsien as a woman.
2016
Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien 錢存訓
Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien 錢存訓, Professor Emeritus in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Curator Emeritus of the East Asian Library of the University of Chicago, was born in 1910 in Taixian 泰縣, Jiangsu, China, as he says in the first line of his memoir, “during the reign of the last Emperor of the Imperial Dynasty.” Over the course of his extraordinarily eventful life, he has made numerous contributions to the study and preservation of China’s literary heritage. After graduating from Jinling University in Nanjing in 1932, he worked first as assistant librarian of Jiaotong University Library in Shanghai and then as director of the newly opened Engineering Reference Library at Nanjing, a branch of the Beiping Library. In 1941, during China’s War Against Japan, he risked his life to ship 30,000 volumes of rare books to the United States for safe-keeping. In 1947, he moved to the United States, beginning a career at the University of Chicago that would span eight decades: as a student (he received his Ph.D. from the University in 1957), professor (he was promoted to professor in 1964), and librarian (he was appointed librarian in 1947, and held the post until his retirement in 1978). The author of several monographs and more than 150 scholarly articles, Professor Tsien’s Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginning of Chinese Books and Inscriptions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1st edition, 1962; 2nd revised edition, 2004) and the Paper and Printing volume (Volume 5.1) for Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) are regarded as classics of Sinological scholarship and have been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The teacher of two generations of Chinese librarians in America, Professor Tsien resides in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.
《留美雜憶——六十年來美國生活的回顧》(台北傳記文學出版社,二○○七年;合肥黃山書社,二○○八年)
錢存訓教授《留美雜憶》讀後感想 (汪威廉)
最近一個甲子,對於在美國從事中國研究的學生、學者而言,「錢存訓」的大名跟 「中國文化」、「圖書版本」幾乎是一個同義詞。一九九一年台北和北京出版了《中國圖書文史論集——錢存訓先生八十榮慶紀念》,二○○六年北京圖書館及台灣 的圖書館學會又分別推出《南山論學集——錢存訓先生九五生日紀念》與《中國圖書館學會會報.錢存訓教授九秩晉五祝壽專號》祝賀他的華誕。錢先生的生平事 跡,他的門生與朋友寫了很多。關於他的家世,卻只提及曾祖父乃道光朝進士,祖父精於書畫,父親曾是佛學雜誌《海潮音》主編。我認識錢先生四十多年了,亦僅 耳聞他是屬於「書香世家」的一族,直到讀了《留美雜憶——六十年來美國生活的回顧》(台北傳記文學出版社,二○○七年;合肥黃山書社,二○○八年),才發 現他首次自述﹕「我的家庭是社會上一般人所稱頌的『書香世家』,美國人所羨慕的『帝王後裔』。所謂『帝王後裔』,緣自錢氏宗譜中的始祖是五代吳越國王錢鏐 (八五二—九三四)。據說他文武雙全,奠定了『上有天堂、下有蘇杭』的富庶地區。到了雷峰塔刻經的第五代錢俶歸附趙宋,錢氏統治了這一地區將近一百 年。」(頁三,傳記文學版,餘同)
上面這段話,我有兩點感想。其一,錢先生溫、良、恭、儉、讓的涵養,是大家所熟知的。到了將近一百歲的時候,才寫出自己比較詳盡的「家庭背景」,透露出 「帝王後裔」的信息。這不但意味著他對史實存真的態度,而且也給我們這些後輩一點驚喜。其次,他說明「帝王後裔」是「美國人所羨慕」的。近世以還,國人對 專制皇朝的「帝王」印象欠佳。美國有些人出於名人崇拜的心態,卻很羨慕英國的皇族。因此,他便引用「美國人」的口氣來磘述,可見其用心良苦矣!
捨「旅美」而取「留美」
這本書的標題,捨「旅美」而取「留美」,也許有特別的寓意。錢先生本來並不打算長期「旅居」異域,無奈迫於現實,只能久「留」不歸。而且,他認為自己是 一個「留學生」而不是「僑民」。事實上,他在美國的心路歷程,諸如讀書、工作、教學、研究、寫作、出版與每個階段的閱歷與磨煉,正是絕大多數跟他同時代的 中國留美學者的真實寫照。由於他的學術貢獻和文化活動是多面性的,這部個人紀錄,也可說是近代中美兩國文化、學術、教育的歷史縮影。
《留美雜憶》的內容,既不「雜」也不亂,乃有條不紊而且全面涵蓋了錢先生的典 型文人生涯的生動紀錄。全書的正文六章包括﹕《國內經歷》、《定居芝城》、《工讀十年》、《坐擁書城》、《教研一得》、《退而未休》。另有六章附錄:《家 世淵源》、《先德遺墨》、《作者生平》、《著述評論》、《師友懷念》、《福杯滿溢》。正文是一氣呵成的「編年體」自傳。錢先生說自己原沒有寫回憶錄的念 頭。因為訪問的人很多,為了避免重複回答,才改變初衷,從頭寫起。再者,此書副題說是居住美國的回顧,但《國內經歷》那一章,卻甚重要。錢先生回憶:「早 年熱心革命,為軍閥逮捕,但大難不死,卻因此得以接受高等教育……。」 (頁二)許倬雲先生在序言中所說的「溫良正直」,便是從少年時期培養出來的品格,以至一生中有立德、立功、立言的成就。附錄各章,乃是資料的匯集。錢先生 的學術交遊,在《師友懷念》一章可見一斑。至於《福杯滿溢》的文字,是錢師母的作品。讀後教人相信美滿的家庭與成功的人生是相輔相成的。
成名作《書於竹帛》
作為一名讀者,我很佩服錢先生蒐集文獻與圖片等資料的功力。而他著述考慮周全,舉凡一言一事、一人一物,都擺布得四平八穩,交代得一清二楚。結論在平實 中有創見,在創見中又極具啟發與說服力。舉例來說,他的成名作《書於竹帛:中國古代的文字記錄》(Written on Bamboo and Silk),牽涉的範圍極廣,諸如古文字學,文字載體如甲骨、金石、簡牘、帛書、紙卷,以及書寫工具如筆、墨、硯、刀等各種文物,都是素材。我們試想,一 門甲骨或青銅器,就足夠讓一組專家做長期研究了,錢先生卻憑一己之力,在半工半讀的情形下,抱著「竭澤而漁」的態度,把這些材料不厭其煩地進行了「地毯 式」的清查。當我們讀了經過「爬梳統整、董理序次」的資料性章節之後,分析性的「結論」便水到渠成,一切問題都能迎刃而解了。怪不得這篇博士學位論文一經 出版,立刻被譽為「經典之作」,於是,李約瑟(Joseph Needham)所編《中國科學技術史》(Science and Civilisation in China)大系中的《紙和印刷》(Paper and Printing)一冊,執筆者則非錢先生莫屬。
* 錢存訓《中國古代書史》香港:中文大學,1975 (本書根據周寧森翻譯《書於竹帛》增訂而成)
竹帛編製的典冊,是紙張印刷圖書之濫觴。那麼,《紙和印刷》就是《書於竹 帛》的續篇了。錢先生曾說,李氏請他合作這個寫作計劃,正是「不謀而合」(頁六九)。我認為,他們合作獲得的成果「相得益彰」,而且可說是國際文壇上的一 段佳話。李氏雖是知名的生化學者,「他不是科班出身的漢學家;而且思想左傾,受到一些英國學者的攻擊。」(頁二五四)更嚴重的是,「李氏在朝鮮戰爭期間, 曾參與世界和平理事會……指控美國曾經使用細菌,引起美國官方對這一指控感到憤怒……從此他便一直為美國政府列入不受歡迎人士的黑名單。」(頁二五九)一 九七六年李氏赴美接受芝加哥大學所贈榮譽博士學位一事, 全是錢先生幕後的策劃與接洽。可見錢先生對「文字結緣」友人的誠懇與熱情, 而李氏於闊別三十年後重遊 「花旗土地」,也「認為在他晚年的多次旅行中最高興而具有象徵性的一次訪問」(頁二五九)。
《紙和印刷》專題權威著述
《紙和印刷》是英美學術出版界一個非常成功的例子。它原定篇幅限於一百頁,最後李氏同意擴充為三十萬言約五百頁的巨著。初版在發行前就被預訂一空,結果 續印三次, 是《中國科學技術史》 大系中銷路最好的一冊 。學術界早已公認這本著作是專業的百科全書, 也是專題的權威著述。中國人雖然最先發明了印刷術,可是,有系統的印刷史研究則有待於一九二五年卡特(T. F. Carter)那部《中國印刷術的發明和它的西傳》(Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward)名著的出現。一九八五年《紙和印刷》的出版,可說是卡特之後,錢先生將六十年來的考古與研究的成果,做了一次總結。另一方面,他對國內 日漸蓬勃的學術風氣,尤其是對這個專題的研究,以及中國文化對世界文明的貢獻,也有一定程度的影響。
有趣的是,二○○八年北京奧運會轟動一時的開幕儀式中,選擇了簡牘、卷軸、印刷等「中國智慧」的表演節目,這跟錢先生兩部大作所討論與研究的題目,十分吻合。錢先生當年做學問所選的題目,現在有人作為「劇情」 來表演,他一定很高興吧?
錢先生很重視紙和印刷對世界文化發展的作用,特別是印刷術發展對社會功能及影響的問題,他說﹕「印刷術在中國和西方的功能雖然相似,但其影響並不相同。 在西方,印刷術的使用,激發西方各民族的理智思潮、促進民族語言及文字的發展和建立民族獨立的國家;而在中國,印刷術的作用正好相反,它不僅有助於中國文 字的連續性和普遍性,更成為保存中國文化的一種重要工具。因此,印刷術和科舉制度相輔相成,乃是中國傳統社會相對穩定的重要因素之一,也是維護中國民族統 一的堅固基礎。」(頁七十)之所以有如此精闢的見解,我認為他是從《書於竹帛》一路思考出來的。中國的文字起了關鍵作用。西方用的是拼音文字,只要有通用 的字母就能拼出各地的方言。反之,象形表意的漢字,與拼音文字不同。中國各地不同的方言,無法用拼音表達,即使可以用拼音,也無法辨識,只有取漢字一途。 英國史學家湯恩比曾說,現代人仍可跟二千多年前的孔子用同樣的語文溝通,可見漢字的優越性。漢字實係維繫中華文化統一的臍帶。
研究著述本著「勤」與「精」
錢先生的作品,不管是學術論文或小品雜文,都有一個特點——那就是再版和重印,屢見不鮮。他所研究的簡牘、紙墨、印刷、版本等課題,經常有新文獻和考古 文物的發現。他一本「勤」與「精」的書生本色,凡有新材料、新資訊經他過眼,一概都精簡收入。因之,他的學術著作,一再增補與改版,永遠保持「新鮮」的容 貌與讀者見面。至於他的小品雜文,由於內容充實而有趣,文筆洗練而流暢,正是編輯先生所爭取的對象。記得宋太宗有「開卷有益」的故事。今天時代不同了,無 益而有害的出版物充斥市場。不過,讀錢先生的任何文章,如坐春風,都是裨益於身心的。在《留美雜憶》裏,錢先生曾把自已主要作品的各種不同版本,源源本本 地說得很明白。章學誠所說的「辨章學術,考鏡源流」,目錄學家錢先生是不會忽略的。
寫到這裏,我想起錢先生在芝加哥大學的一位老朋友何炳棣先生。他四年前也出版 過回憶錄《讀史閱世六十年》,寫的也是整整一個「還曆」。在芝大那段日子,錢、何兩家時相過從。在我心目中,兩位先生無論家庭、健康、學術、事業、際遇各 方面,都很成功、美滿、幸福。他們是經師,也是人師 。我何其有幸,早年寄寓芝城北郊,有緣向錢先生問學。近年遷居加州南部,又能蒙受何先生教益。拜讀他們的回憶錄,把往事重溫一遍,有溫馨之感,也有依依之 情。「沒有歷史,只有傳記」,是十九世紀美國作家愛默生的名言,早年胡適先生也常勸人寫日記、自傳。個人的傳記就是社會歷史的原始材料。十七世紀英國作家 皮普斯(Samuel Pepys)曾經形容﹕個人回憶錄有如繁星布滿在歷史的天空。我相信,兩位先生的回憶錄,是「芝加哥學派」的兩顆明星,將永遠熠熠晶晶地閃亮著。
(作者是退休旅美文史工作者。)
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