可惜还是未能如生前所愿葬在燕园之内
二十世纪，有一位中国人民的真正的好朋友，他对中国的功绩足可以彪炳史册，但他的名字却被玷污了半个多世纪，不能不令人扼腕。这位真挚朋友的名字，叫做司徒雷登。
1918年，北京的两所教会大学，汇文大学和协和大学，决定合并，校方看中42岁的司徒雷登，让其执掌新的学校。司徒雷登提议，新学校称为燕京大学。司徒雷登出生在中国的传教士家庭，成长在中国，对中西文化融会贯通，极有才华。他接手的燕大，既无钱、又无地，也没有师资力量，学生只有百来人，在外人看来是个“不可完成的任务”。
虽然司徒雷登笃信基督教，但是在接手燕大后，把办学主旨从宣扬宗教转移到弘扬科学、民主上。没有钱，他就走访中外，向人们募捐，曾十多次横渡太平洋，去美国要钱。向别人要钱总是艰难的，司徒雷登自己说，他去募捐的那些对象，看他的眼神就像看乞丐一样。在募捐过程中，司徒雷登表现出极强的交际能力。
司徒雷登看中了清华附近的一块地，想以此作为校址。这块地属于陕西军阀陈树藩。为买下此地，司徒雷登不辞辛劳，先乘两天火车，再由督军卫兵护卫，骑马一周，穿过土匪出没的险恶地带，亲赴西安与陈树藩当面谈妥了土地交易。司徒雷登又一次展示了他的说教本领，陈树藩这个旧军阀不但同意以超低价卖出此地，竟然还将卖地款的三分之一，2万银元捐给燕大。后来，大军阀孙传芳也曾给燕大捐了2万银元。军阀头子竟然捐钱办学，怪哉，怪哉！
司徒雷登说服哈佛大学与燕京大学合作，于1928年春成立哈佛燕京学社，利用美国霍尔教育基金，建立哈佛燕京图书馆。他的这些努力和诚意，使燕大成功的召集到当时最著名的一些大师学者。也使燕大成为中国最成功的大学之一。司徒雷登亲自为燕大学拟定了“因自由得真理而服务”的校训。在司徒雷登的努力下，燕大逐渐成为“世界知名的大学”。
司徒雷登热心弘扬中国文化的逸事，一向在文化界为人津津乐道。30年代，梅兰芳赴美演出，资金不够。司徒雷登到各方募资，最后还自掏腰包，使梅兰芳得以成行。此行极为成功，在美国引起中国文化热，梅兰芳被人被多个大学授为名誉博士。
燕京大学建校伊始，正值“五四”运动风起云涌。司徒雷登立场鲜明地站在爱国学生一方，他说：“中国的学生运动是全世界民主运动的一环。学生是中国的希望。”他通过努力，使五四运动中被捕学生获得营救。三一八惨案中，燕大的魏士毅同学惨遭杀害。惨案发生的第二天，司徒雷登便举行了有全校师生参加的追悼会，并在图书馆树起“魏士毅女士纪念碑”。1931年“九·一八”事变发生后，燕大一百多名学生参加南下请愿团，赴南京请愿。司徒雷登亲自带领数百名燕大师生走上街头游行，领头高呼“打倒日本帝国主义”。
1937年，卢沟桥事变爆发，北平沦陷。司徒雷登在燕大升起美国国旗，与日寇周旋。由于当时美日还未撕破脸，日本人也不敢轻易为难燕大，因此燕大逐渐成为华北抗日人士秘密据点。如果有学生牵涉到抗日事件被捕，司徒雷登必竭尽全力的营救。如果有学生决定奔赴大后方或共产党控制区，司徒雷登也要发给盘缠，为其安排逃亡路线，并亲自设宴送行。这些事情引发日寇愤恨，派大批秘密警察对燕大日夜盯梢。
1941年，太平洋战争爆发后不到半小时，日本人即包围、占领燕大，将其强行解散，并将司徒雷登逮捕。日本人经常审问司徒雷登，询问其帮助过哪些中国人，为何要帮助中国人。司徒雷登说，他帮助中国人，是因为信任他们，他也被中国人信任，因此他不能辜负中国人的信任。慑于司徒雷登巨大的声望，日本人未敢对他动粗，便将怒气发泄在燕大的师生身上，对他们严刑逼供。司徒雷登被日本人囚禁了四年，直到1945年二战结束，才重获自由。
甫获自由，司徒雷登便开始重建燕大。在恢复燕大的工作正起声色的时候，1946年，司徒雷登被美国政府任命为驻华大使。对于这项职务，司徒雷登了解其艰难，非常不愿意接手。但是，由于司徒雷登在中国的声誉，他是这一职务的不二人选。1949年，目睹蒋介石政权的衰亡，司徒雷登提出了和中共接触的主张。但由于美国国务卿艾奇逊对此置若罔闻，此主张未能实现。当中共接手全中国，司徒雷登在中国也失去了容身之地。他痛苦的离开了生活了五十年的中国，带走了“爱美国，也爱中国”的理想。
1962年9月在他临终之前，他给秘书留下了两个遗愿：一是将当年周恩来送他的一只明代彩绘花瓶送还中国；二是将他的骨灰送回中国，安葬在燕京大学的校园内。关于骨灰的安排，司徒雷登在他的遗嘱里说：我指令将我的遗体火化，如果可能我的骨灰安葬于中国北平燕京大学之墓地，与吾妻为邻。老人临终前，令他念念不忘的是其为之倾付了毕生心血的燕京大学。但是最终，他的骨灰也没能那样安眠在他几乎付出了一生心血的燕京大学。
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US diplomat's ashes now at home in China
By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer
Monday, November 17, 2008
(11-17) 06:56 PST HANGZHOU, China (AP) --
He was born in China and wanted to be buried in China. For decades, politics made that impossible.
But Chinese and American officials watched the interment Monday of the ashes of John Leighton Stuart, the last U.S. ambassador to China before the Communists swept to power in 1949.
"Farewell, Leighton Stuart!" Mao Zedong wrote mockingly when Stuart left China. Mao's essay calling Stuart "a symbol of the complete defeat of the U.S. policy of aggression" became required reading for schoolchildren in China for decades.
Stuart was a Christian, a missionary, an educator — the founder of what would become one of China's best universities, Peking University — in short, much of what the incoming Communists viewed with suspicion.
But he was also a fluent Chinese speaker who, it was said, saw himself as more Chinese than American, and he was saddened by the split that would lead to the ongoing issue of China and Taiwan. As a diplomat, he had tried to stop it.
"The Chinese knew of my love for their country, my concern for their welfare ... but I failed them," he wrote.
In his will, he asked that his ashes be buried in China.
For years after his death in 1962, and into this decade, the politics of a possible burial were too sensitive because of Mao's essay. It couldn't have helped that Stuart's memoirs were critical of China's Communists in that early era, saying they "have developed deception into a fine art; they rely on force, fraud and falsehood" and wouldn't last.
Then the man who's now expected to be China's next leader heard Stuart's story.
In 2006, now-Vice President Xi Jinping was visiting the United States as the Communist Party head of Zhejiang province, based in Stuart's hometown of Hangzhou.
At a party in Washington, Xi met Maj. Gen. John Fugh, who mentioned his personal quest to bury Stuart's ashes. Fugh's father had been Stuart's secretary in China, and Stuart lived with the family in the United States before he died. Fugh himself became the first Chinese-American to become a U.S. Army general.
Stuart had wanted his ashes buried in the university cemetery in Beijing, beside his wife who had died in 1926, but a burial in China's political center seemed impossible. Perhaps, Fugh said, Stuart could go home to Hangzhou instead?
"He made it happen," Fugh said of Xi's help. "He did a lot of work behind the scenes. We're very indebted to him."
Last year, the city of Hangzhou even turned Stuart's birthplace into a museum, an old house where his honorary citizenship, presented in 1946 before his political fortunes turned, is on display.
"It's safe to say that Hangzhou is Stuart's second home," Hangzhou Vice Mayor Tong Guili said.
Xi couldn't be reached Monday through the news office of the State Council, China's cabinet.
But other Chinese and American officials, including Ambassador Clark T. Randt Jr., stood Monday in front of Stuart's grave in a Hangzhou cemetery and spoke of history and change, almost 30 years after the normalization of U.S.-China diplomatic relations.
Stuart was an educator long before his few years as a diplomat. His legacy, Randt said, is in the almost 70,000 Chinese students studying in the United States today, and in the thousands of American students at Chinese universities.
Stuart would be pleased, Randt added, by the countries' current relations.
"Just the fact that we're here today, this is happening, Dr. Stuart would've been pleased," he said.
Others with an eye on U.S.-China relations were pleased as well.
"I'm glad we can be so brave to correct our mistake now," Shen Dingli, who directs the Center of American Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said in a telephone interview.
Stuart's ashes were interred beside a black marble slab with his name in both languages.
The burial began with a surprising burst of music from a CD player hidden among the mourning bouquets of flowers. "Amazing Grace," and then, "The Star-Spangled Banner." It ended with the officials and a small group of gray-haired students from the university Stuart founded bowing three times to his grave.
Afterward, the former students gathered near the grave. Most never met Stuart before he left China, and most had forgotten whatever English they had learned. But they were proud to pay their respects to his memory.
"Did you hear the music?" Jonathan Kuo, a student who started classes in 1949 as the Communists took over, asked with a little mischief. "We brought it. We decided it was better not to ask permission and just play it."
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