一門“五馬”各領風騷

20世紀上半葉，中國教育界波涌浪激，多元并爭，北京大學作為新文化運動的中心舞臺，更是氣象萬千。當時，在蔡元培先生“兼容并蓄”的辦學思想指導下，北大網羅眾家，薈萃精英，使得一大批學博功深的名流紛紛執教北大，被譽為“一錢（錢玄同）、二周（周樹人、周作人）、三沈（沈士遠、沈尹默、沈兼士）、五馬（馬裕藻、馬衡、馬鑒、馬準、馬廉）等諸位教授，就是北大黃金歲月的經典組合，而且都是浙江人。

令我們引以為榮的是，“五馬”教授系浙江寧波人，他們是寧波鄞州邱隘盛墊村馬海曙的五個兒子。一門“五馬”在人文學術領域各領風騷，這在北大歷史上是絕無僅有的，在幾千年中國知識分子家族史中也屬罕見！

馬氏群賢來自一個小村

來到鄞州邱隘盛墊村，真令人有點兒驚訝，因為這個村落太小了。村委領導告訴我：盛墊由四個自然村組成，占地一平方公里，戶籍在冊總人口僅600多人。但你可曾想到，在中國文化教育史上留下了一個個輝煌足跡的馬氏群賢，就根植于這么一個小小的村落！“五馬”是如何能夠集體走出偏僻一隅走向全國的文化宮殿的呢？現年82歲的馬義浩老人捧出兩本珍藏的馬氏族譜，翻著族譜，一個世家大族的來龍去脈和興衰變遷逐漸明朗起來：原來盛墊馬氏乃漢代伏波將軍馬援之后，他們于北宋末年南流避亂，至明代永樂年間，其中一族人入贅盛氏，于是馬氏一脈就發展開來了，至今盛墊馬姓村民已占半數以上。

馬氏一族門庭顯赫始于第三代的賢庵公，他官拜兵部尚書，為朝廷立了許多功勞。但朝代更替、世事滄桑，至19世紀中葉清朝末期，馬氏望族已趨式微。這時，一位扭轉家族局面的關鍵性人物出現了，他就是海曙公，族名有木。作為出身名門的望族子弟，馬海曙也曾循規蹈矩地走科舉之路，但幾次應試之后，他反感教條僵化的八股文，竟冒天下讀書人之大不韙，毅然經商，做了商人。不想這一轉折，馬海曙不僅讓家道復興，門庭重振，更重要的是他還培養出一群傳承儒雅而又富有民主主義色彩的馬氏后代，這些后代的名字，在中國文化教育史冊上熠熠生輝。

深厚學養出自嗜書如命

說起在馬氏兄弟中排行老二的馬裕藻，1905年浙江公費選派100名學生留學日本之時，馬裕藻夫婦竟雙雙入選東渡日本。馬裕藻在日本師從章太炎先生學習文字音韻學，1911歸國擔任浙江教育司視學。1913年至1937年先后任北大國文系教授、系主任，并與魯迅、許壽裳、朱希祖等一起提出以審定字音時使用的符號作為“注音字母”。這是中國第一套漢字注音方案，在1958年《漢語拼音方案》公布之前，它一直被國人使用了40多年，為漢字正音、傳播國語、幫助識字做出了極大貢獻，馬裕藻的女兒馬玨，當年是北大赫赫有名的?；ǎ诨貞浉赣H馬裕藻先生時說：“父親一生別無所好，唯喜購書、讀書。我們家曾搬過兩次，每次覓房都有兩個要求：一是要有足夠的書房，至少要有三四間，室內四周都是大書架，還有大書桌。再一是離北大要近。父親除了上課以外，就是總在他的書房里。他的藏書大都是用朱紅標點過的。讀書備課，這是他一生最大的樂趣。父親去世后，按照他的心意，我家的藏書（21000冊）獻給了北大圖書館?！?/p>

馬衡（1881-1955），字叔平，排行第四。他與馬鑒最為親近，在清王朝最末一次科舉取士中，他倆雙雙考中秀才。但他倆受維新運動影響，沒參加鄉試而是進入了南洋公學。畢業后馬衡與寧波幫中號稱“五金大王”葉澄衷之千金結婚，身為商界巨擘的女婿，馬衡卻書生本質不變，他拋棄富豪生活，毅然北上從事高等教育。1918年至于1931年，馬衡歷任北京大學文學院國文系講師、史學系教授兼研究所國學門導師、考古研究室主任、北京大學圖書館館長，1934年起任故宮博物院院長。他畢生致力于金石學的研究，著有《中國金石學概要》等眾多著作，被譽為中國近代考古學的前驅者和奠基人之一。值得一提的是馬衡是軍閥孫殿英東陵盜寶案的最早揭發者之一，此舉的后果差點帶來生命危險。爾后日本侵華，故宮博物院文物南遷，數千箱國寶在戰火中輾轉東西南北，歷盡艱難險阻，到抗戰勝利后才傳奇般地完璧歸趙，這當中身為故宮博物院院長的馬衡可謂盡職盡責，功不可沒；

馬鑒（1883-1959）字季明，排行第五，南洋公學畢業后曾任教北平協和醫學院。1925年赴美國紐約哥倫比亞大學教育學院攻讀碩士學位，1926年至1936年任燕京大學國文系教授及國文系主任，1937年至1941年任香港大學文學院教授，1942年至1945年任成都燕京大學國文系教授、國文系主任，并于1944年至1945年任文學院院長，1946年至1951年擔任香港大學中文系主任。馬鑒的師德是有口皆碑的，學生曾這樣評價他：“季明師為人溫文忠厚，講課及談話時都是那么謙和，有彬彬君子之風；處事認真負責，對學生選課及學業上的種種問題，都悉心扶助，指導有方?！彼簧虝?，對書籍愛之若命。蔡元培為馬鑒寫了副對聯：“萬卷藏書宜子弟，十年種木長風煙”，這是對馬鑒嗜書很真實的寫照；

馬準字太玄，他是個民俗學家，曾在京師圖書館工作6年，1913年后任北京大學教授，教授文字學和目錄學，1927年顧頡剛先生邀請他至廣州中山大學負責圖書館工作。著有《中印民間故事的比較》《關于中國風俗材料書籍的介紹》等；

馬廉(1893-1935)字隅卿，是馬氏九兄弟中最末一位。他曾任北平孔德學?？倓臻L，北平師范大學、北京大學教授，1926年8月繼魯迅先生之后在北京大學講授中國小說史課，后主管孔德圖書館。1935年2月19日，在北京大學講臺上因腦溢血而英年早逝。

他一生搶救了大量珍稀版本的戲曲古籍，1932年回故鄉鄞縣養病時，曾與鄭振鐸、趙萬里一起訪得天一閣散出的明抄本《錄鬼簿》，三人立即影抄出一部副本，第二年他又在當地購得一包殘書，其中有舊藏天一閣的明嘉靖刻本《六十家小說》中的《雨窗集》《欹枕集》，馬廉將此兩冊書交由書局影印出版，從而使十二篇宋元話本得以傳世。

文脈傳承惠及后裔

人生短暫，當年的“五馬”都已作故，但他們留下的文化和精神遺產是不朽的。值得欣慰的是，從馬氏的后輩子孫中，我們仍看到了文化脈絡的顯明傳承。馬衡之子馬彥祥是中國著名戲劇導演、戲劇理論家，先后導演過《雷雨》《日出》《漢宮秋》《武則天》《逼上梁山》等劇，他歷任文化部戲曲改進局副局長、藝術局副局長、中國劇協副主席等職，領導并主持了《中國大百科全書·戲曲曲藝卷》和中國《戲曲劇志》的編纂工作；馬鑒有兩個兒子繼承了教育事業，馬蒙是香港大學教授兼中文系主任，馬臨則成為香港中文大學的校長。

在寧波父老鄉親心目中，馬臨無疑是印象最深的一位。他多次受到鄧小平、江澤民、李鵬等黨和國家領導人的接見，1985年擔任中華人民共和國香港特別行政區基本法起草委員會委員，為香港回歸祖國下了汗馬功勞。馬臨關心家鄉的教育事業，早在包玉剛籌建寧波大學時，他多次趕赴寧大，以其對高等教育的遠見卓識，向包玉剛及寧波市與寧波大學有關領導獻計獻策。后來，馬臨博士又代表邵逸夫先生，多次親臨寧大商談落實捐資項目，為寧波建成了邵逸夫圖書館、逸夫教學樓、逸夫職教中心。

“人才是致富之根，科技是強國之本，國家之根本在于教育”，這是馬臨博士對教育意義的認識，其實也是馬氏家族文化群賢教育價值觀的集體反映。

村里的人說：馬氏家族有很多人都出去了，現僑居海外的有200多位。這無關緊要，重要的是馬氏家族的文化根脈留存了，崇尚教育的風氣養成了。據了解，1998年，小小的一個盛墊村，居然投資80萬元與鄞州中學合資辦起了藍青學校，不久雙方又投入500萬元，建起了學生寢室樓和食堂……

如此眼光，如此手筆，生動地折射了馬氏家族文化前輩們一貫的遠見卓識。

The Five Brothers of the Ma Family

The first half of the 20th century witnessed the millennia-old China began painfully and dramatically modernizing itself. One of the most phenomenal aspects was the modern education which took shape gradually. Peking University， where the New Culture Movement started and shaped the country， took the center stage in the education modernization. Under the wise leadership of Cai Yuanpei who worked to liberalize academic thinking and encouraged the expansion of disciplines， the university attracted a galaxy of prominent scholars to teach there. Many of the brilliant scholars were of Zhejiang origin. The five brothers of the Ma family， from Ningbo， a port city in East China’s Zhejiang Province， were all professors at the prestigious institution of higher learning. It is said that such a phenomenon is unique not only in the history of Peking University but also in the history of the intellectual families across the country.

They came from Shengdian village in the suburb of Ningbo. Even today， it is a small village composed of four tiny natural hamlets scattered within an area of one square kilometer and with a registered population of 600. According to the family pedigree， the Ma family in Shengdian village were descendents of Ma Yuan， a general in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-24 A.D.). They moved southward in the closing years of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) when the whole country was torn apart by war. In the Mind Dynasty (1368-1644)， a son of the Ma family married a daughter surnamed Sheng and moved in with the wife’s family. This is how the village first had someone surnamed Ma. Today， half of the residents in the village carry the nonnative surname.

The Ma family in this village flourished when Ma Xian誥n of the third generation since the grandfather’s move into the village was appointed as the minister of the Department of War. In the following centuries the family declined until the middle years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when Ma Shuguang brought the family back to prominence. As a son of a prestigious family， he first followed his forefathers?footstep by trying to become a government official through the imperial examinations system. After a few failed tries， he felt the bondage was quite smothering. So he gave up the political future and started a business. Success came soon. This proved to be a turning point in the family’s renaissance. He sired nine sons and five of them became eminent scholars at Peking University.

Ma Yuzao was the second of the nine brothers. He and his wife were two of the 100 scholars selected in 1905 in Zhejiang Province to study in Japan at the expense of the government. In Japan he studied， among other subjects， phonology under Master Zhang Taiyan’s tutelage. In 1911 he returned to Zhejiang and worked in the provincial education authorities. He was a professor and dean of the Chinese Language Department at Peking University from 1913 to 1917. In collaboration with Lu Xun， Xu Shoushang and Zu Xizu， he formulated a phonetic notation system for the Chinese language， which was the country’s first and was in use for about 40 years until 1958 when it was replaced by a new system.

Ma Heng (1881-1955) was the fourth brother of the nine. He was closest to Ma Jian， the fifth brother. They attended the last imperial examination of the Qing Dynasty and passed at the county level. Influenced by the modernization movement， they did not take the imperial examination at the provincial level. Instead， they enrolled themselves into Nanyang College in Shanghai， a government-funded education institution. From 1918 to 1931， Ma Heng taught at Peking University. Before becoming the president of the Palace Museum in 1934， he was director of Peking University Library. He was one of the founding fathers of the modern archaeology in the country. He was one of the first people who risked their necks and broke the shocking news to the country that the warlord Sun Dianying had robbed the East Mausoleum. During the Resistance War against Japanese Aggression， Ma Heng was in charge of moving thousands of cases of national treasures safely across the country. He kept them in tact and returned them to the Palace Museum after the war.

Ma Jian (1883-1959) was the fifth brother. After graduation from Nanyang College， he taught at Peking Union Medical College for a while. In 1925， he studied at Columbia University in USA and from 1926 to 1936 he was a professor and then dean of the Chinese Language Department of Yanching University (which merged with Peking University in 1952). From 1937 to 1941 he was professor at the college of liberal arts with the University of Hong Kong. From 1942 to 1945 he was back at Yanching University and from 1946 to 1951 he was dean of the Chinese Language Department of University of Hong Kong.

Ma Zhun， an expert of folk customs， worked for six years at the library of Beijing Teachers College before he became a professor at Peking University in 1913， teaching philology and bibliography. In 1927 he went to work at the Zhongshan University in Guangzhou and was in charge of the university library.

Ma Lian (1893-1935) was the youngest of the nine brothers. He was a professor at the Beijing Teachers University and Peking University respectively. After Master Lu Xun quit teaching the History of Chinese Novels at Peking University， Ma Lian took over the course in August， 1926. He died of cerebral hemorrhage in the classroom in the university on February 19， 1935. During his short lifetime， he salvaged reams of ancient books of Chinese folk dramas.

The brothers?descendents have been following the footsteps of their forefathers. Ma Yanxiang (1907-1988)， a son of Ma Heng， was a celebrated theater director and theater theorist. In addition to taking a series of important government jobs in the field of culture， He also presided at the editing work of the Theater Volume of China Encyclopedia and helped edit The Chronicles of Chinese Theater. Ma Jian’s two sons were also actively engaged in education: Ma Meng was a professor and dean at University of Hong Kong from 1968 to 1981. He passed away this year at the age of 89. His younger brother Ma Lin was president of The Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1978 to 1987 before he retired.

Today， more than 200 people of the Ma family have migrated to overseas， but education as a fond tradition stays as a focal point in the village. In 1998， Shengdian invested 800，000 to build a school in collaboration with a local middle school and the two partners later added another five million for constructing a dorm building and a dining hall.

(Translated by David)