In July 1921, Gong Zhuxin, a young man who was working in the Beijing Post Office at that time, learned Zhou Zuoren's address because of his position, and rashly wrote a letter and asked for a book.

Introduction: Starting from Gong Zhuxin's letter

In July 1921, Gong Zhuxin (1899-1966), a young man who worked in the Beijing Post Office at that time, learned the address of Zhou Zuoren because of his position, and wrote a letter rashly and asked for a book. It was Zhou Zuoren who was recovering from Xishan . Lu Xun replied to Zhou Zuoren on behalf of Lu Xun. The original text is as follows:

"Mr. Zhuxin:

Zhou Zuoren has been sick for many days and now lives in Xishan Biyun Temple . The letter was only brought to him yesterday. Now I will answer a few words for him.

"History of European Literature" and " Extraterritory Novels " have redundant foundations. Each of them gives you a copy, please don't have to send it back.

. We don't have any of them. But Dr. Dewey's speech has a scattered leaf that was removed from the Education Bulletin, with more content than the "Five Lectures". It is now [checked] and sent. Please read it and send it back, but it doesn't take many days.

borrowing the library is a good thing, but it may not be easy to establish for the time being. The popular library in Xuanwumen is mostly ready, and I'm not allowed to read it on Sunday (stopped on Monday), but it cannot be borrowed from it. Mr. also had a break on Sunday, so it was very convenient.

Zhoushu Ren July 29th"

8-7, Gong Zhuxin wrote again, probably talking about the return of this batch of Dewey's speeches. Lu Xun wrote again and mentioned, "Dewey's speech is not needed now, so you can leave it alone, and there is no need to be urgent."

Lu Xun is enthusiastic to help young people. He sent Gong Zhuxin, whom he had never met before, to "History of European Literature" and "Collection of Extraterritorial Novels", and personally cut newspapers for him; but at the same time, he instructed that the return "no need to be urgent" and "no need to be urgent" are also somewhat polite. Gong Zhuxin’s letter has not been announced, and it may no longer exist. Since these two letters can provide less information and Lu Xun wrote it more politely, it has never been very concerned by the academic community.

But if you look at it carefully, Gong Zhuxin's letter and Lu Xun's reply all happened at an interesting time. In July 1921, it was the time when American philosopher and educator Dewey and his family finished their more than two-year visit in China and were about to leave Beijing. On July 10, 1921, the article "Mr. Dewey and China" by HiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiHiH The relevant report was titled "Remarks from the Five Groups Farewell to Dewey's Dewey Seat" and was published in the Morning Post on July 1, 1921. In the same month, " Education Magazine " also made a special account "Send Dr. Dewey". At this time, Gong Zhuxin, as a young man, was obviously influenced by the trend of this era and became interested in Dewey.

The "Five Speeches" mentioned by Lu Xun in his letter were compiled by "Fulu" (Sun Fuyuan), and included five series of speeches delivered by Dewey during his time in China. It also included a speech by Mrs. Dewey, which was published and distributed by Beijing Morning Post on August 1, 1920. According to historical records, the book had been reprinted ten times before Dewey left China, which was very popular. In other words, when Lu Xun was writing this letter, it was the time when the book was the most popular, and Lu Xun also paid attention to it.

What is more interesting is that Sun Fuyuan compiled "Dewey's Five Lectures", which was already a collection of Dewey's speeches at that time. Lu Xun worked tirelessly to dismantle Dewey's speech in the "Education Bulletin", and then compiled them together, and said proudly, "The content is probably more than the "Five Lectures". The original clippings sent to Gong Zhuxin by Lu Xun seemed to be no longer there, but based on the above information, we might as well try to restore which chapters Lu Xun might have dismantled.

The "Education Bulletin" and "Five Lectures of Dewey"

The Education Bulletin was published by the Editorial Office of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China. It is "purpose of publishing the Education Act, publishing documents and facts about education, translating the theory, reflecting the current situation of education, and enhancing the progress of the future." Volume 1 was published in June 1914, and then it was published at a relatively stable frequency, and it was suspended in 1927. From 1912 to 1926, Lu Xun worked in the Social Education Department of the Ministry of Education for 14 years and served as the head of the first section. Naturally, he was more likely to get the neat "Education Bulletin".

Dewey arrived in Shanghai in April 1919 by the invitation of Hu Shi and other disciples. In order to spread his teachers' educational, philosophy, and political science propositions, Hu Shi and others spent a lot of effort. Not only arranged Dewey to teach in various schools, but also contacted various newspapers and magazines to serialize Dewey's academic speeches. The Education Bulletin is one of them.

Here we list Dewey's speeches in China published by the Education Bulletin from May 1919 to July 1921, and compare them with the 1920 edition of Dewey's Five Lectures to observe the similarities and differences. Any blank part of the right half of the table

is the content of the "Education Bulletin" that was published in the "Education Bulletin", but it has not been included in the "Dewey's Five Lectures". It is obvious that it mainly includes two parts: 1. Several speeches after Dewey arrived in China; 2. Dewey’s lectures at Nanjing High School after 1920 and his speeches in Fujian and Beijing before returning to China. The more clippings that Lu Xun had than "Dewey's Five Lectures" must have come from this. According to the author's speculation, since Gong Zhuxin's letter was close to the publication dates of Volume 8, 6 and 7 of the Education Bulletin, it is very likely that Lu Xun would cut this part of the chapter from his newly obtained Education Bulletin; and it would be relatively low to let Lu Xun find out the Education Bulletin two years ago, that is, the Education Bulletin in 1919.

But no matter what, Lu Xun cut out the relevant content from the Education Bulletin, compiled it by himself, and said "the content is about more than the "Five Lectures", which shows that he had at least roughly read the "Five Lectures of Dewey". Obviously, Lu Xun was also influenced by the trend of the times and paid some attention to Dewey.

In fact, Lu Xun and Dewey's intersection is much more than that. When Dewey arrived in China, he happened to catch up with the wave of the "May Fourth Movement". The "democratization" and "scientific" advocated by his educational philosophy are highly consistent with the trend of the "May Fourth" era, so he was widely welcomed. A year later, Dewey taught a more systematic academic course at Beijing Higher Normal School , with the course name "Educational Philosophy", which lasted for one academic year since September 1920. Mrs. Dewey also taught "Professor Law" at the same school. In fact, in the same month, Lu Xun began to serve as a part-time lecturer at Peking University Teachers as a "member of the Ministry of Education" and taught "Fiction History". According to the "List of Teachers of Beijing Higher Normal Schools" preserved in the archives of Beijing Normal University today, it can be seen that the Dewey and Zhou Shuren are authentic colleagues of Beijing Higher Normal University.

"A List of Teachers of Beijing Higher Normal Schools" (Beijing Normal University Archives, Archives No. 1-0087-0001)

If you trace the time forward, shortly after arriving in Beijing, Dewey held an academic lecture at the Ministry of Education on June 8, 10 and 12, 1919 respectively. "There are about a thousand speakers attending the meeting, and the seats at the venue are extremely crowded"; from September 21, 1919 to February 22 of the following year, Dewey also gave a series of reports entitled "Educational Philosophy" to the Ministry of Education every Sunday morning. Dewey's reports were mostly on weekends, and the head of the company Hu Shi obviously had considerations to expand the impact. But in the "Diary of Lu Xun", Lu Xun seemed to cherish his right to take weekend vacations as a civil servant and was not very interested in listening. However, Dewey's continuous speeches at the Ministry of Education had a huge impact. As a deputy to the Ministry of Education, Lu Xun said that he was completely unaware of this, but he was afraid it was unreasonable. In addition, this period was also a period when Lu Xun and Hu Shi had frequent exchanges due to the manuscript composition and novel history research of "New Youth", and there were many records of the two having dinner together. Hu Shi is the most core promoter of Dewey's visit to China. It was a normal thing for him to talk to Lu Xun about Dewey during this period.

A more important clue is that Dewey's speeches are mostly published in the Morning Post. At this time, Sun Fuyuan had already begun to record and reorganize Dewey's speech; and it was also during this period that according to Lu Xun's Diary, Sun Fuyuan, who had a friendship with fellow townsmen and teachers and students, often visited Lu Xun, which was one of the closest people to Lu Xun during this period. According to Sun Fuyuan's self-reporter, "Even if I went to society to do things, I still often went around to greet my husband's house, and sometimes I would have dinner and chat with him. The husband had no airs towards us, so we always regarded him as our elders. Whenever there was such a chat, he would talk freely, from the past and present, and he would talk about everything." Of course, from the perspective of literary history, Sun Fuyuan frequently visited, and his biggest achievement was that he gave birth to the " A Q True Story " serialized in the "Morning News Supplement" in 1921. But according to normal circumstances, Sun Fuyuan, who was busy building momentum for "Dewey", and Lu Xun, who "indulged in love and talked about everything from ancient times to the present", was completely reasonable when talking about the most popular Dewey nowadays. The "Five Lectures of Dewey" used by Lu Xun in his hand is also likely to be given by editor Sun Fuyuan.

In summary, the various turbulences caused by Dewey to China are easily transmitted to Lu Xun, whether through the channels of the Ministry of Education, Hu Shi's channels, or Sun Fuyuan's channels; and Lu Xun is not only aware of the serialization of Dewey's speech in the Education Bulletin, but also familiar with the title of the book "Five Great Lectures of Dewey". Lu Xun could never be completely unfamiliar with Dewey and his educational theory.

Theoretical background of "How We Be Fathers Now"

During the two years of Dewey in China, Lu Xun did not directly talk about Dewey in public. However, in 1929 and 1933, when times changed, he said two sarcastic words, but every sentence pointed to Hu Shi. The sentence "Han Mian Mian has a Bai Bide, Xu Zhimo has a Tagore, and Hu Shizhi has a Dewey", mocking Hu Shi for relying too much on Dewey; and the sentence "Han Mian Mian has his experimentalism, and Professor Bai Bide has his humanistic , and those who come back from their scattered trafficking will become Chinese scholars who scold the Baji" express this meaning more bluntly. Based on this, the "Lu Xun Dictionary" believes that "Lu Xun often mentions Dewey when criticizing and satirizing Hu Shi" is in line with the truth. The 1930s were already the period when Lu Xun and Hu Shi had a feud. At this time, Lu Xun seemed to find it difficult to say anything good to Dewey.

However, if you look back to Dewey's arrival in China in 1919, Lu Xun and Dewey had a more looming relationship. At that time, Dewey's arrival greatly aroused the concern of Chinese people on education issues. During this period, Lu Xun talked about education, and the most famous "How We Are Fathers Now" was the first article in November 1919, Volume 6, No. 6 of Beijing's "New Youth". This long article has always been regarded as a concentrated reflection of Lu Xun's educational concepts, but predecessors rarely noticed that the background color of this article is highly "Dewey".

First of all, from the beginning, Lu Xun clearly stated that his discussion was based on biology and was based on evolution theory : "The truth I believe now is extremely simple. It is based on the phenomena in the biological world. First, to preserve life; second, to continue this life; third, to develop this life (that is, evolution). All living things do this, and the father does this... Why must life continue? It is because it needs to develop and evolve. Since individuals are inseparable from death and evolution is endless, they can only continue and walk on this evolutionary path." It is based on this biological understanding that Lu Xun argued that appetite and sexual desire are just the instincts to preserve life and continue life. Although individuals' lives are inevitable to die, the evolution of ethnic groups has no end.

In fact, exploring educational issues based on biology and evolution is a major feature of Dewey's educational philosophy. In the first lecture of the Ministry of Education's speech, Dewey said: "The reason why education is indispensable is because of the two things: 'life' and 'death'.When human beings are born, they cannot be independent and must rely on others, so they depend on education. When they die, they lose all their experiences and knowledge in their lifetime. If future generations want to study them again, wouldn’t it be economical and even cultural may be cut off? Therefore, because human beings have something to die, they must have education to pass on their experiences and knowledge to their descendants. "

Again, adhere to the child-centeredness. Lu Xun wrote: "It was not until recently that after many scholars' research, I realized that the world of children is completely different from that of adults; if I do not understand first and do it blindly, it will be greatly hindered from the development of children. Therefore, all facilities should be based on children. Recently, Japan has been very enlightened; for children's facilities and research on children's careers, it has been very prosperous. "

Lu Xun said, "It was not until recently that after many scholars' research, I realized that the world of children is completely different from that of adults." In fact, it is based on Dewey's "Children's Center Theory". Dewey also emphasized in his speech that "no matter what children's instinctive experience or what society needs, as long as adults think of a good knowledge and experience, they will be trained together and force them into the hearts of children. Now I know that this method is wrong. The reform method is to move the center of education one family: from subjects to children. Follow the child's growth procedures so that he can gradually develop his instincts until he can educate himself. "In the history of Western education, Dewey is mostly understood as the core representative of the "child-centered theory". He opposed the practice of focusing only on knowledge imparting but ignoring the characteristics of children's psychological , and required that all teaching activities be reorganized based on children's psychological characteristics. This transformation has far-reaching impact and is even described as a "Copernican-style change."

It is precisely because children have their own special psychological world that Dewey attaches great importance to the value of "game" in cultivating the spiritual world of children. The Education Bulletin once compiled Dewey's book "School of the Future" in a serialized form, and the second issue of 1920 published "Chapter 5: Game", which said: "Game and competition are instinctive spontaneous activities for children. "In 1925, Lu Xun wrote another article " Kite ", which summarized the main sentence "I unfortunately saw a foreign book about children and realized that games are the most legitimate behavior of children." This is probably deeply related to Dewey.

Again, do not sacrifice the present for the future. Lu Xun said in the article: "The misunderstanding of children in the past was to be an adult's preparation; the misunderstanding of Chinese was to be a shrinking adult. "This sentence is the most conclusive evidence, proving that Lu Xun knew Dewey's theory, because the debate about the "education preparation theory" has a direct relationship with Dewey in the history of Western education.

British educator Spencer (Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903), in response to the issue of British classical education that advocated empirical literature and flashyness at that time, proposed that education should prepare for children's future life and cultivate various skills necessary for children's future life. This "education preparation theory" had its progressive significance at the time, but Dewey deeply realized that with the rapid changes in modern society, it is difficult for anyone to predict exactly what the so-called necessary skills in the future society are. Instead of preparing for a slim future society, it is better to really pay attention to the current situation of children and cultivate them through practical experience activities. Students’ ability to cope with possible changes. In addition, education first faces living children. "Children are very interested in their current life, and educators insist on using this educational method that prevails future purpose, which is the most unnatural and unreasonable thing."

Dewey also specifically talked about this issue in Chapter 7 of the lecture on "Philosophy of Education": "The biggest disadvantage of a school is to first meet a very distant purpose for students, thinking that what they are learning now is to prepare for future social use. Although it has nothing to do with life, it will be used one day in the future. Therefore, what you learn and what you use cannot be connected at all. "This concept has three harms: delaying students' time; reducing students' interest in their current life, not paying attention to the present but hoping for the future; making us judge children's grades without natural standards.Dewey also clearly told Chinese audiences that this preparatory statement originated from Spencer, which was "a great progress in the education industry" at the time, but has been severely criticized. Dewey himself is the most core critic of the "educational preparation theory", so Lu Xun's sentence "The misunderstanding of children in the past was considered to be an adult's preparation" can only point to Dewey.

Not long after 1923, Lu Xun gave a speech " What to do after Nora leaves ", and repeatedly emphasized to students that "Don't dream of the future" and quoted Alzhibasuif's words, "You have made an appointment with the Golden World for their descendants, but what can I give to themselves?" This is similar to Dewey's criticism of Spencer's school of "not paying attention to the present but hoping for the future."

Finally, it is also particularly worth noting that Lu Xun criticized some people under the banner of pragmatism in the second half of the article: "In addition, there is another way to teach some methods of dealing with them to adapt to society. This is the same mistake as those who talked about 'pragmatism' several years ago, because there are fake foreign money in the market, so they have to teach students how to read foreign money in schools. Although society cannot adapt by chance, it is by no means a legitimate method. Because of bad society, there are many evil phenomena and the trend cannot be adapted one by one; if all of them are adapted and violate the reasonable life, will go the path of evolution. Therefore, the fundamental method is to improve society."

Lu Xun is actually not criticizing Dewey's pragmatism here, but criticizing some "people who talked about 'pragmatism' several years ago", and the core of which is Huang Yanpei . As early as 1913, Huang Yanpei wrote an article "A Discussion on the Adoption of Practice in School Education", calling on "Education to educate and educate it so that one can prepare for the indispensable part of life and life. If one cannot give up this family and eliminate this society, he will also educate it so that one can have the ability to be independent between families and society, and can cope with it appropriately." Based on this, it is necessary to carry out "purpose of practicality" improvements in various subjects of primary school, such as "arithmology subject", one should "write propositions and use more practical things or objects. If you learn about the land area, you must have various weights and measures to test it. Regarding the land area, you will be able to use abacus and bookkeeping (and you should also give a brief introduction to various new bookkeeping), indicating the banknotes, money bills and currencies of various countries, and verify the currency method. (It may be suspected that this type is not an ordinary school. However, if you try to use silver coins, and if you are wrong, you will be sold at will, even if you recognize that verification of coins is an ordinary necessary skill.) "Lu Xun's so-called "method of looking at foreign money" is exactly the "coin verification method" advocated by Huang Yanpei.

Huang Yanpei was appointed as the director of the Jiangsu Provincial Education Department in December 1912, and resigned in February 1914, which had a great impact on the education reform in Jiangsu Province. After the article was published in 1913, Huang Yanpei distributed the article to various schools, and the so-called "pragmatism" education reform in Jiangsu Province was in full swing. The primary school affiliated to Jiangsu Provincial No. 2 Normal School published an article "Our School's Implementation of Pragmatism"; , a teacher at Jiangsu Provincial No. 1 Normal School affiliated to Jiangsu Provincial No. 5, wrote an article "Pragmatism Implementation Law", and responded one after another, trying hard to implement the will of the education director, so that in the classroom, the situation where teachers teach students how to identify fake coins. Sun Fuxi later recalled: "When some places in Jiangsu implemented 'pragmatism' education, the teacher did not agree. What made the teacher feel ridiculous is that there was a lesson in 'looking fake foreign money' in the teaching class to identify the authenticity of silver dollars . This is really a waste of the foundation and the end."

Dewey only visited China in 1919, and Lu Xun's "How do we be fathers now" was also written by Lu Xun in 1919. Therefore, the so-called "people who talked about 'pragmatism' several years ago" could not point to the group of Dewey and Hu Shi; and Sun Fuxi's memories limited the region to a province in Jiangsu. Then, Lu Xun's words could only be directed at Huang Yanpei from 1913 to 14.

Huang Yanpei's so-called "pragmatism" education is mainly rooted in his own vocational education position, which is not without merit, but it has deviated from Dewey's original meaning. In Lu Xun's view, teaching students how to see foreign money in schools is undoubtedly an act of giving in to evil phenomena in society and does not help social improvement.The position that Dewey's educational philosophy should adhere to is: "Social improvement depends entirely on schools. Because schools are a tool for creating a new society, removing old problems and developing in a new direction, and containing undiscovered abilities to prepare children to do things for society." Lu Xun was actually sarcastic. Although Huang Yanpei talked about "pragmatism", he was not very clear about Dewey's original meaning. In 1922, Lu Xun published an article "Jiao Xueheng", mocking Xueheng School , "Although the masters of the imperial examinations were not good enough to write, they could not understand themselves, so why did they 'Heng' people?", which was actually based on similar writing styles.

The author has no intention of saying that Lu Xun's view of education is a copy of Dewey. For example, Lu Xun introduced the problem of biology mainly to break through the moral barriers of "filial piety" that are very special for the Chinese, which Dewey rarely touched on. But it is undeniable that there is a very obvious shadow of Dewey behind the long article "How do we be fathers now". Gao Yuanbao once noticed keenly that, including this article, any article included in the episode "Grave" by Lu Xun has a very prominent "paper" nature. Then it might be said that Dewey's writings are the most core reference when Lu Xun wrote this long article. If

is imminent, or if it is from

Next, the question worth further discussion is that since Lu Xun is already very familiar with Dewey's educational theory and can even criticize Huang Yanpei for his misunderstanding of Dewey based on this, why did Lu Xun still maintain a considerable distance from Dewey, and in his future literary and theoretical research, he almost did not show too much interest in Dewey? The issue of

is probably related to Lu Xun's mood at that time. Since 1919, Dewey has been the darling of Chinese public opinion. He traveled to eleven provinces in China, with no less than 200 speeches of all sizes and sizes. His lecture notes were serialized in major newspapers and magazines under various names. He had disciples arranged them and could receive hospitality from the highest local officials wherever he went. For Lu Xun, who has been copying ancient monuments in Shaoxing Guild Hall for many years and is not very close to the faction of returning to the United States, there is really no need to join in the fun. A few years ago, a study by Wu Zhen showed that when Lu Xun was studying medicine in Sendai, he was taught by Mr. Shikihara Shigejiro. But compared to this famous professor who was proud of his life, Mr. Yan Kyuro Fujino, whose life was not so smooth, made Lu Xun feel a "common feeling among the weak". Lu Xun is a very obvious personality trait of being close to the weak and not willing to cling to the strong. Therefore, he was not willing to take the title of Dewey at that time. This is the focus of Lu Xun's future mockery of Hu Shi.

But the deeper reason is probably related to Lu Xun's thinking on the issue of social transformation in China. As Zhao Kang said, Dewey does not understand Chinese. The theoretical image he showed to China was largely presented by his translator Hu Shi, and here, Dewey's theory is mainly interpreted as an experimental "method". In Hu Shi's words, "He (Dewey) only gave us a philosophical method to use this method to solve our own special problems." This method is to focus on history and experiments, and "the application of the special advocate is limited, and the application of the method is infinite. Although Mr. Dewey has gone, his method will definitely gain more believers in the future." Dewey of course also holds a belief that society will make progress, but this belief has become an almost simple optimism after Hu Shi's amplification, as if any social problem in China can be solved easily by the three axes of experimentalism. When Dewey came to China, it was when the May Fourth Movement was in full swing, Hu Shi embraced a very simple optimistic attitude; when Dewey left China, his works were most respected in China, and what Hu Shi thought of was a bright and beautiful scene.

In Lu Xun's opinion, things are probably not that simple.As Liu Yong pointed out, Lu Xun is not a "new youth". "When more young intellectuals hold high the banner of enlightenment, thought and literature, repeating Lu Xun's ideals in his early years, Lu Xun obviously has entered a more mature stage." Although Lu Xun understands the value of enlightenment and social improvement, he is more aware that enlightenment is an unfinished project, and social improvement is even more a project that needs long-term construction. How can everything be fine because of the arrival of Dewey and the introduction of an experimental method? Compared to Hu Shi, Lu Xun obviously did not have such a bright and optimistic attitude. However, during this period, Lu Xun still led Hu Shi and others as fellow practitioners, and was unwilling to spread his thoughts to others. For this factor, Lu Xun actively read and absorbed Dewey on the one hand, but on the other hand, he kept a considerable distance from Dewey who was translated and introduced by Hu Shizhi.

Yulun

Lu Xun absorbed countless foreign ideas and literary nutrition in his life, among which the more significant ones, such as Nietzsche, Gogol , Chukawa Baicun, etc., because Lu Xun himself talked a lot and had a lot of materials for comparison and research, he has received a lot of attention. Lu Xun's absorption of Dewey belongs to the relatively hidden part. Because of the trend of the era of "Dewey fever", Lu Xun actively absorbed his educational philosophy, but overall, it kept a considerable distance from Dewey's theory. Compared with the so-called relationship between "influence and acceptance", this attitude of "accepting influence while maintaining rejection" seems to better reflect some characteristics in Lu Xun's spiritual world.

(original comments are omitted)