传统启蒙教材改编的成功尝试——李维臣《千家姓》序

A Successful Attempt to Adapt Traditional Enlightenment Textbooks——A preface to A Thousand Family Names,by LI Weichen

《百家姓》为北宋初年钱塘一位老儒生所编,因其适应了在教育不普及情况下一些人希望认得姓名以满足最简单文字交往的需要,近一千年中成了启蒙教育中流传最广的教材之一。它只是用来认字,而没有传播文化与进行思想品德教育的功能,故记诵它毫无意义。明代初年重编的《皇明千家姓》和清代康熙年间所编《御制百家姓》探索用姓氏字联字成句表现一定的意思,但因旧本《百家姓》流传太广,终未能取代前者。今在旧的启蒙教材退出全国教育阵地大半个世纪之后重编《百家姓》,用常见姓氏字表现新的思想,传播文化知识,必能起到推陈出新、发挥传统启蒙教材积极因素的作用。

The Book of Family Names was compiled by an elder Confucian scholar in Qiantang in the early North Song Dynasty.It has been one of the most popular enlightenment textbooks for nearly one thousand years,for it met the demand of some people who hoped to recognize the names so that they could communicate in the simplest words because at that time education was not popularized.So,apart from improving literacy,it had no function of education and culture popularization,thus there was no need to memorize it.The newly compiled The Royal Version of A Thousand Family Names in the early Ming Dynasty and Emperor Authorized A Thousand Family Names during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty both attempted to express certain meanings by connecting the words,but both failed to replace the Book of Family Names because of its wide popularity.After more than half a century when the old enlightenment textbooks disappeared from the system of the whole national education,it will function well to discover something new in this ancient work and take advantage of the traditional enlightenment textbooks by re-compiling the Book of Family Names,showing the latest thought,popularizing the cultural knowledge with the commonly seen family names.