This attraction introduction is compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · Scenic Spots section). Ticket prices, opening hours, transportation, and contact information mentioned in the text may be outdated. Please refer to the latest official announcements from the scenic area before traveling; some content consists of historical background/cultural introductions and is for reference only.
Changsha Normal School was founded in 1912 by Xu Teli, using the former site of the Letan Temple at Qinghehua Pond. It was established to train primary school teachers, recruited students from across the province, and after graduation they also served throughout the province. In 1950, the women's division merged with the Xiangtan Women's Normal School to form the Hunan Women's Normal School, and in 1959 it was changed to the Hunan Preschool Normal School, becoming a secondary normal school for training preschool education teachers. It founded the journal Preschool Education, distributed nationwide, and compiled its own textbooks such as Preschool Educator and Preschool Hygiene. It is now named Changsha Normal School.
Xu Teli (1877–1968), originally named Maoxun, was born in Heyeduan, Wumei Township, Changsha County. His family was poor, and after six years in a private elementary school he dropped out. At 18 he taught in a village private school. He planned to "spend ten years bankrupting the family to study," using income from teaching and selling off family property to obtain funds for study. He changed his name to Teli, meaning "to stand independent in conduct, to keep oneself pure and lofty, not to follow vulgar ways, not to fall into the mud."
In 1905, he was admitted to the Ningxiang Normal School accelerated class located at Wanglu Garden in Changsha. After graduating four months later, he and Jiang Jihuan and He Yunong founded Lijiang School in Langli Town, 30 li east of Changsha city, running the school under hard conditions and taking no salary. In the year of the overseas Chinese compatriots, he was hired to teach at Zhounan Girls' School, read revolutionary publications such as Meng Huitou, and actively took part in uprising activities during the 1911 Revolution. In 1912, he founded Changsha Normal School and took part in various educational undertakings. Later, in his "Sixty-Year Autobiography," he said: "There were altogether eight hundred primary schools in Changsha, and all the teachers were trained by me alone in a short period. In Changsha's educational circles I should be the 'King of Changsha.'" He taught in Changsha for 20 years. At the age of 43, inspired by the May Fourth Movement, he resolutely went to France for the work-study program and was called a "student leaning on a cane." Five years later he returned to Changsha and founded Changsha Girls' Normal School for young women who had lost their schooling. For that school he wrote the graduation song: "Do not boast of Changsha's hundred thousand mouths; if the young are not taught, they are not mine. In ten townships, half are only partly enlightened; a few men of broad learning cannot last long. Do not say the countryside has too many obstacles; tangled roots and knotted joints need a skilled hand. Do not say the countryside's school pay is thin; cultivating people yields a harvest of gold like a dou measure. Let us all strive to plant peaches and plums, and make our ancient Tan chase Zou and Lu."
After Liberation, Xu Teli returned to Changsha many times. Each time he always inspected schools, visited teachers and students, and repeatedly funded the running of schools. He died in 1968 at the age of 91.
