On October 19, 2022, the Leading Group of National Lifelong Learning Week of the Ministry of Education and the China Adult Education Association announced the list of "People's Learning Stars" in 2022. Professor Pu Jian of the Law School was listed first in the list of "People's Learning Stars with Particularly Touching Deeds".

Professor Pu Jian has been teaching and researching Chinese legal history for a long time, serving as teaching assistant, lecturer, associate professor and professor. He has a gentle personality and has been an exemplary teacher and educator for more than 60 years. He has a steadfast character and is still dedicated to his studies at the age of 90. He interpreted the concept of lifelong learning through his own practice and continued to contribute to China's legal education, rule of law and legal research.

Professor Pu Jian is a model of discipline. After graduated from the Law School of Renmin University of China in 1954, he was assigned to work at Peking University as a teaching assistant for the course "History of Chinese Legal System" when the Law School was re-established. At that time, Peking University did not offer this course before, so with "nothing to start with", he made great efforts to search for materials and devoted a lot of energy to attend courses related to "History of Chinese Legal System" organized by other schools, such as Chinese, history and philosophy school, and laid a solid foundation for the study of the history of Chinese legal system.

Professor He Qinhua, a student of Professor Pu Jian, recalls that Professor Pu Jian was once in poor health when he was young, but he was very strong and optimistic, speaking and lecturing as usual. In addition to teaching at Peking University Law School, Professor Pu Jian has also been the main teacher of the course "History of the Chinese Legal System" at Central Radio and Television University since 1980, and has worked part-time at Renmin University of China and China University of Political Science and Law. To his students, Professor Pu Jian is both a teacher and a friend. As Professor Pu Jian himself said, "As a teacher, being open and honest, and being able to afford the trust of my students is the most enjoyable thing in my life."

Professor Pu Jian has a large number of academic publications. The history of the legal system is a seemingly boring subject, but Professor Pu Jian is willing to enjoy it. With his deep legal research background and calm academic determination, Professor Pu Jian has made unique contributions to the study of major academic issues. For example, on the issue of the date of the Tang Code, Professor Pu Jian pointed out that many of the contents of the book did not correspond to the social reality of the "Kaiyuan period" held by Japanese scholars, thus arguing that the existing Tang Code were not the Kaiyuan Code but the Yonghui Code, which attracted the attention of scholars both in China and abroad.

Professor Pu Jian also participated in the preparation of several textbooks on the history of the Chinese legal system, and A Compendium of the History of the Chinese Legal System published by Shanxi People's Publishing House in 1980 was the first publicly published textbook on the history of the Chinese legal system, which was a milestone for the development of the study on the history of the Chinese legal system. In 2001, Professor Pu Jian, who is in his seventies, published a 4-volume, 2-million-word book Ancient Chinese Legal System, which won the first prize for outstanding achievements in philosophy and social sciences in Beijing in 2002.

Professor Pu Jian has always maintained a rigorous and solid academic attitude. Among many academic achievements, the most noteworthy one is the 4-million-word Dictionary of Chinese Legal History, which took Professor Pu Jian 60 years of hard work to compile. The manuscript of the book is nearly one meter high and contains 11,343 articles. Liu Yanshou, editor and reviewer of Reader Publishing Group, commented on the value of the book in the book review: "This is a masterpiece compiled by a 90-year-old expert in Chinese legal history, well known both in China and abroad, who has devoted his life to the accumulation of knowledge in the history of Chinese legal system. It can be said that it is the first large dictionary published in the field of Chinese legal history in the past century, and its academic value and historical status are beyond doubt. It is not too much to say that it fills a gap in the publication of a large tool book in this field."

Today, at the age of 95, Professor Pu Jian is still devoted to his studies. He said, "There are more than 500 kinds of notes in ancient China, and I have gone through about 400 kinds, among which 183 kinds of notes have the content of Chinese legal history, and I have transcribed them all, accumulating nearly one million words to be published. Now that I am getting older, my energy is not up to it, so I am just organizing the past materials. I still have the idea that if my energy is up to it, I would like to organize the past lectures." Professor Pu Jian's passion for learning and his enterprising spirit will surely inspire the younger generation to advance on the path of learning.

Translated by: Shang Bowen

Edited by: Li Ang