Lương Văn Can School, Nhị Khê Village, Thường Tín Commune, Hà Nội City

The life and career of Mr. Lương Văn Can have been recorded fairly specifically and clearly in many historical books. According to the materials we have researched, we summarize as follows: Lương Văn Can was a modern patriotic scholar. He was born in the Giáp Dần year (1854), died in the Đinh Mão year (1927), courtesy name Ôn Như, pen name Sơn Lão, native of Nhị Khê Village, Nhị Khê Commune, Thường Tín District, Hà Đông Province (now Hà Tây).

His father was Lương Văn Tích; the family circumstances were ordinary, so he had to send his elder brother named Lý to serve as a soldier. Later he tried to mortgage land to send him and his younger brother Ngọc Lâm to study Chinese characters. He was the third child in the family (or the fifth if daughters are counted). He studied at Mr. Tú's school in the village (among them was Mr. Tú Liêm, who later engaged in anti-French activities, was arrested and exiled, then died. Lương Văn Can became acquainted with the Hà Đông Provincial Administrator Nguyễn Hữu Dự, so he asked to bring his teacher's remains back for burial in the home village). Later he studied at the school of the provincial graduate Vũ Thạch Nguyễn Huy Đức, and passed earliest among the students, so he was appointed head student of this school. The school was opened in Vũ Thạch Village (now house number 7 on

Tràng Thi Street, Hà Nội). This was a very famous school because of the teacher's reputation. The teacher's integrity could not but influence Lương Văn Can's thought. Therefore, later he himself composed a stele praising the teacher to place in front of the ancestral hall, and he took charge of building it in the 15th year of Thành Thái (1903).

At the age of 17, he took the Hương examination and passed the Tam trường. At age 20, in the Quý Dậu examination year (1873), when the French attacked Hà Thành, the exam had to be postponed. The following year he passed the cử nhân degree, so people usually called him Mr. Cử Can. In March of the Kỷ Mão year (1789) there was an extra Hội examination; he intended to go to Huế to sit for it, but his father became seriously ill and then died, so he had to abandon the exam. After that, he went to Hàng Đào Street, Hà Nội to teach Confucian learning in the examination style. Later friends brought him new books by Rousseau, Montesquieu, Voltaire... through Chinese translations by Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao - leaders of the reformist faction in China. He greatly liked the ideas of Liberty - Equality - Fraternity of the Enlightenment school in the great French bourgeois revolution (1789), and a change in his thought took place. His pedagogical methods also innovated. From that, he came up with the initiative to establish Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục School to educate the people and carry out a cultural revolution. In 1908, he joined with comrades to establish Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục School on Hàng Đào Street, Hà Nội and initiated the Duy Tân movement - in which Lương Văn Can was a founder, Nguyễn Quyền was principal, and a number of people were chairmen such as Đào Nguyên Phổ, Phan Tuấn Phong, Đặng Kinh Luân...

A special point of the curriculum was that it included subjects such as history, geography, arithmetic, hygiene... Every week, students with new ideas could bring them for discussion and debate. The school also organized lectures to encourage patriotism, solidarity, oppose the old examination-oriented learning, value practical careers, and live in a new style such as wearing short shirts, cutting topknots, having white teeth, using domestic goods, eliminating backward customs.... Patriotic scholars and progressive people participated enthusiastically, making the French colonialists panic; they carried out White Terror, ordered the school closed, and arrested some people. He was also summoned many times, but they did not have enough evidence to arrest him. In 1913, on the occasion of a bomb throwing at the Hà Nội Hotel, they arrested hundreds of people including him, then sentenced him to 10 years of exile, deported to Nam Vang (Phnom Penh - Cambodia). After holding him for more than 7 years, they reduced his sentence and allowed him to return to Hà Nội on November 25, 1921.

Returning to Hà Nội, he continued teaching, opened Ôn Như School, and devoted himself to writing books. His sons: Lương Trúc Đàm, Lương Nghị Khanh, Lương Ngọc Quyến all sacrificed their lives for the country. His son-in-law, the patriot Nguyễn Phương Sơn, was exiled to Đốc Vàng Thượng, Long Xuyên Province (now An Giang).

On June 13, 1927, he died in Hà Nội of old age at 73. Before his death, he left a parting instruction to his descendants: "Bảo quốc tuý, tuyết quốc sỉ" (preserve the essence of the country, wash away the nation's shame) and the works: Quốc sự phạm lịch sử, Hán tự tuyệt kính, Ấm học tùng đàm, Gia huấn, Hán tự tuyệt âm, Hạnh đàm loại ngữ (selected translation of the Analects) and Châu thư loại ngữ (selected translation of Mencius). When he died, scholars in the country deeply mourned him. Most moved were the working class. Most typical was the memorial poem for him by Chu Văn Tấn published in Tạp chí Đông Pháp thời báo on June 24, 1927, with poignant words:

"Dear compatriots!

The country's scholar Lương has passed away

This common sorrow is not easy for anyone alone

I am a laborer of genius

With sincere heart I show the grief of a hero

Dear compatriots of Lạc Hồng and Nam Việt

This common sorrow we must resolve together

Pity the scholar's merits and labors

For the people and the country, he spent his whole life?

During his lifetime, he had an elementary school built in his homeland with the aim of enlightening the people's will for local children and those in the region to study. This school, he stood up to mobilize the people to build together; by the end of 1924, the school was completed with 2 spacious classrooms.

Lương Văn Can Elementary School was built by the patriot Lương Văn Can using his own money and mobilizing people's contributions so that children in the commune and the region could study, to enlighten the people's intellect and then save the country and the people. Previously, because he had a political conviction, he had to use another person's name to start construction. Several teams of carpenters and masons knew that Lương Văn Can was the person who contributed money to build the school, and respected him as a patriotic scholar who resisted the French and had been exiled and placed under surveillance, so they secretly carved his name into the crossbeam, but carved the mark on the inside as a memorial. Later the district chief forced them to erase it. At the inauguration and opening ceremony of the first school year (1924-1925), he reminded the students: "I hope that from now on, our village's school, the young generations of Nhị Khê today and tomorrow, will grow up to be cultured people with moral careers to bear the heavy responsibility before the ancestors." To remember the merits of Mr. Cử Lương Văn Can, the people took his name to name the school, but the French colonialists did not accept it and forced it to be called "Nhị Khê Việt - Pháp School" before appointing teachers to teach and paying salaries. After the August Revolution of 1945, the school officially bore the name Lương Văn Can Elementary School.

Lương Văn Can Elementary School is located at the end of the village, facing southwest. The school was built in 1924 with 2 spacious classrooms. In the school grounds there is still a surrounding wall system built with reinforced pillars.

From the school gate, we step into the schoolyard with two almond trees planted in the yard; outside is an ancient almond tree estimated at about 50 years old. Passing the brick-paved three-step stairs is the main item. The elementary school is a horizontal row of buildings including 2 spacious classrooms, with gable walls closed at the top and two sloping roofs covered with bottom-well tiles (these are new tiles repaired in 2005). At the two ends of the roof ridge are attached decorative finials; the ridge edge has two pillars, the middle pillar is decorated with a scroll pattern, the lower pillar is shaped like a lantern cage, above is a capital, and at the top is a sphere. The porch of the elementary school is quite wide; at the two ends of the porch are two arched Gothic-style doorways. The front of the porch opens two doorways; on both sides there are two half-doors; below, the wall is divided into 3 panels, inside each panel is a chrysanthemum flower shape.

Inside the classrooms, each classroom is divided into 3 bays with a truss structure of the crossbeam type; the classroom has rows of student desks and chairs, the middle is for passage, above is the teaching platform with a chalkboard hung directly in front.

Although it has existed for over 80 years since its founding, through two sacred resistance wars of the nation, the school has still been preserved and protected by the people with its original values.