Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Academic Autobiography"
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| [a] Fields RF |
V—One Field, Many Farmers
I have only given a hint of this topic’s complexity and
the potential for real engagement with serious questions in intellectual
history. Fairbank’s is much more than
the quirky story of one professor’s obsession with his topic. It is odd that Chinabound does tend to strike
readers in that way, though. His focus
can be off-putting, even to China scholars. We must return to Chen Pu’s treatise on farming for perspective. Whether or not other members of society like
it, the successful “farmer” needs to concentrate relentlessly on his
field. Fairbank refers to this in two
different quotations that I have remembered from the first time that I read the
book, twenty-five years ago, as a beginner in the field he created.
I imagine that Fairbank anticipated that a number of his readers would be put off by his single-minded devotion to China. Indeed, Fairbank knew people in many fields, and was interested in a wide variety of intellectual and political issues. He counts as college friends the great anthropologists Lauriston Sharp and Clyde Kluckhohn, was a family friend of Felix Frankfurter, and enjoyed the company of colleagues at Harvard in a wide variety of fields. Even a quick reading of Chinabound shows a mind interested in a wide variety of questions. Why, then, would he portray himself as devoted (as the examples below will clearly show) with such fervor to his own career and the field of Chinese studies?
One day after a reception Wilma had brought Felix Frankfurter, who was
a family friend, and Harold Laski home to supper with us and some of
her girl friends—a gay party. Come ten to eight, I excused myself to go
to Professor Langer’s seminar. “What’s he got that we haven’t got?”
asked our luminaries. I felt rather insufferably self-righteous and could
only say, “It’s part of a plan.” I was still trying to qualify for the big time.[1]
It has sometimes occurred to me that an area specialist may be rather
poor company for someone not interested in the specialist’s area. But I
don’t know. I have never spent much time with such people.[2]
I believe the answer to my question above is the same as Chen Pu’s. Complete devotion and fervor is the only way to succeed in Chen Pu’s farming world and Fairbank’s institution building one:
Only those who love farming, who behave in harmony with it, who take
pleasure in talking about it and think about it all the time will manage it
without a moment’s negligence. For these people a day’s work results in
a day’s gain, a year’s work in a year’s gain. How can they escape affluence?
As to those with many interests who cannot concentrate on any one and who
are incapable of being meticulous, even if they should come by some profit,
they will soon lose it. For they will never understand that the transformation
of the small into the big is the result of persistent effort.[3]
Although John King Fairbank certainly did not shrink from work beyond his field, he made his company with others who were committed to the common work. It is here that we see the real relevance to Fairbank’s thought in Chen Pu’s treatise. The skilled farmer does not seek to procure more land. “Owning a great deal of emptiness is less desirable than reaping a narrow patch of land”—this is a phrase that could well have been spoken by John King Fairbank in referring to his interest on two centuries in one country in a rather large world. As he knew well, however, there is nothing small about the best work, and he, was able, like the great archer Pu Qie, to draw a delicate bow and string two orioles with one arrow.
We shall let Fairbank have the last word today, allowing us to finish not with my interpretation but with his own images of growth and production in his field:
In sum, what can a teacher say of his students and colleagues and their
works? I participated in some fashion in the conception, gestation,
growth, and publication of books by younger professors on their way up
in the academic world….They were of a generation that changed the
contours and content of modern China’s history as known to the English-
reading world. Like senior professors at other universities I presided over
part of this creative process. I was, in Dean Acheson’s phrase, “present
at the creation.”[4]
Click here for the other posts in this Round and Square series on John King Fairbank's autobiography:
 |
| [b] Variety RF |
I imagine that Fairbank anticipated that a number of his readers would be put off by his single-minded devotion to China. Indeed, Fairbank knew people in many fields, and was interested in a wide variety of intellectual and political issues. He counts as college friends the great anthropologists Lauriston Sharp and Clyde Kluckhohn, was a family friend of Felix Frankfurter, and enjoyed the company of colleagues at Harvard in a wide variety of fields. Even a quick reading of Chinabound shows a mind interested in a wide variety of questions. Why, then, would he portray himself as devoted (as the examples below will clearly show) with such fervor to his own career and the field of Chinese studies?
One day after a reception Wilma had brought Felix Frankfurter, who was
a family friend, and Harold Laski home to supper with us and some of
her girl friends—a gay party. Come ten to eight, I excused myself to go
to Professor Langer’s seminar. “What’s he got that we haven’t got?”
asked our luminaries. I felt rather insufferably self-righteous and could
only say, “It’s part of a plan.” I was still trying to qualify for the big time.[1]
It has sometimes occurred to me that an area specialist may be rather
poor company for someone not interested in the specialist’s area. But I
don’t know. I have never spent much time with such people.[2]
I believe the answer to my question above is the same as Chen Pu’s. Complete devotion and fervor is the only way to succeed in Chen Pu’s farming world and Fairbank’s institution building one:
Only those who love farming, who behave in harmony with it, who take
pleasure in talking about it and think about it all the time will manage it
without a moment’s negligence. For these people a day’s work results in
a day’s gain, a year’s work in a year’s gain. How can they escape affluence?
As to those with many interests who cannot concentrate on any one and who
are incapable of being meticulous, even if they should come by some profit,
they will soon lose it. For they will never understand that the transformation
of the small into the big is the result of persistent effort.[3]
 |
| [c] Relevance RF |
Although John King Fairbank certainly did not shrink from work beyond his field, he made his company with others who were committed to the common work. It is here that we see the real relevance to Fairbank’s thought in Chen Pu’s treatise. The skilled farmer does not seek to procure more land. “Owning a great deal of emptiness is less desirable than reaping a narrow patch of land”—this is a phrase that could well have been spoken by John King Fairbank in referring to his interest on two centuries in one country in a rather large world. As he knew well, however, there is nothing small about the best work, and he, was able, like the great archer Pu Qie, to draw a delicate bow and string two orioles with one arrow.
We shall let Fairbank have the last word today, allowing us to finish not with my interpretation but with his own images of growth and production in his field:
In sum, what can a teacher say of his students and colleagues and their
works? I participated in some fashion in the conception, gestation,
growth, and publication of books by younger professors on their way up
in the academic world….They were of a generation that changed the
contours and content of modern China’s history as known to the English-
reading world. Like senior professors at other universities I presided over
part of this creative process. I was, in Dean Acheson’s phrase, “present
at the creation.”[4]
Click here for the other posts in this Round and Square series on John King Fairbank's autobiography:
 |
| [d] Present RF |
[1] John King Fairbank, Chinabound (New York: Harper Collins, 1983), 3.
[2] Chinabound, 3-4.
[3] Patricia Ebrey, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York: The Free Press, 1993), 190.
[4] Chinabound, 201.
Bibliography
Ebrey, Patricia. Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook (New York: The Free Press, 1993).
Fairbank, John King. Chinabound. New York: Harper Collins, 1983.
Fairbank, John King. Chinabound. New York: Harper Collins, 1983.
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