左秉隆的华教举措与马华文学的开端

Tso Ping Lung’s Measures in Education in Chinese and the Beginning of Chinese Malaysian Literature

早在1881年左秉隆出任新加坡领事期间,马来西亚华文教育体系就开始和中国的教育体系有了紧密的联系。左秉隆出任新加坡领事期间(1881-1891),为马来亚华文教育的发展做出了重要的贡献,他所推动的举措,对海外华文教育的推进亦带来了颠覆性的冲击,对海外华文教育的发展影响深远。过去学者将左秉隆在华文教育的贡献归结为“义塾的倡设”,虽然给予了正面的肯定,却忽略了他对马来亚乃至海外华文教育的真正影响。本文在前人研究的基础上结合原始文献,将左秉隆的重要贡献归纳为马来亚华文教育及华文文学发展两方面,前者让马来亚华文教育取得中国官方的认同、通过与中国科举考试的接轨来完善本土华文教育体系以及团结当地华文教育的枢纽,后者则是通过左秉隆创办的会贤社,进一步阐述左秉隆为当地华文文学开启的文人结社传统,建构了一个有序的运作机制,发展出马华文学生态圈的初始形态。

As early as Tso Ping Lung was a consul in Singapore in 1881,the Chinese-language educational system in Malaya began having close ties with that of China.When he was the consul(1881-1891)in Singapore,he had made an important contribution to the Chinese-language education in Malaya and the measures he had adopted created a subversive impact on the advancement of Chinese-language education overseas,with a far-reaching influence on it,too.Although scholars in the past was positive about Tso's contribution,defining it as the promotion and establishment of free private schools,they ignored his real influence on Chinese-language education in Malaya and overseas.Combining the original literature and based on the previous studies,this article considers Tso's important contribution as the one to Chinese-language education in Malaya and to the development of Chinese-language literature there.In the former,he made it possible for China to officially rectify Chinese-language education in Malaya,for Malaya to perfect the native system by integrating with the imperial examination in China and to unite the local hub of Chinese-language education.In the latter,with Huixian Society founded by Tso,he began the tradition of literary associations for the local Chinese-language literature,constructing a systematic operating system and developing the initial form of Chinese Malayan literary ecosphere.