He also had the special honor of accompanying President Ho Chi Minh to visit France in 1946 to seek peace between the two peoples of Vietnam and France...

At the beginning of November 1946, in 2nd session, the National Assembly (Term I) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, the Government of the United Nations was established, with Ho Chi Minh as President. Among the 14 ministers, there is Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen, Minister of Education.

Perseverance to raise great will

"This is the book Phu Dong Festival in French, published in Hanoi in 1938, by my father"... Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Huy, the youngest son of the late Minister Nguyen Van Huyen respectfully flipping through the pages of a time-stained book, written more than 70 years ago. In the wooden cabinet, where books and research works of "Mr. Nghe" Nguyen Van Huyen are kept, located in the family's living room; I noticed the care, cherishing and preserving the invaluable heritages not only of the family, but also of the Vietnamese culture.

Pointing to some memorabilia, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Huy "narrated": "This is the helmet my father used to wear during the fierce war years. This ostrich egg, on a business trip in Africa in the 1960s, he brought back so that his students could see a very rare specimen at that time "...

Looking around the cozy living room in the house at the beginning of Tran Hung Dao street - Hanoi, the most solemn place to place the altar of Mr and Mrs Nguyen Van Huyen, there are two statues of Minister Nguyen Van Huyen and his wife Vi Kim Ngoc. On the wall, there are still-life paintings written by Vi Kim Ngoc, a young lady who grew up in a famous Vietnamese gentry family in the early 20th century...

Family of the late Minister Nguyen Van Huyen.

Often, many people still cordially call Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen "Mr. Nghe". Nguyen Van Huyen was born in 1905 in a house on Thuoc Bac old street, Hanoi. Born in a family with a tradition of being studious and working as a medicine maker (originally Lai Xa village, Kim Chung commune, Hoa Duc, Hanoi today); Although his family is not rich, but with the determination to raise his children to study well, Nguyen Van Huyen was allowed to study abroad by his mother in 1926...

In the memory of the boy Nguyen Van Huyen, there is still a poem written by his mother to her two sons (Nguyen Van Huyen and Nguyen Van Huong) who are studying abroad in France: "People are born in the world / Must learn to be a talent. new good / This profession, this profession / First is to benefit the nation, later to benefit the people"... Or in the poem "Advice me", Nguyen Van Huyen's mother writes: "Dear son, listen to me please/ Want to If you're wise, you have to find a teacher to learn / How to pay the homage / Leave the country alone so that you don't disturb your parents / Be a patriot and forget home / If the other country is complete, the house will be completed / The book has a saying about creating a heroic position / Civilization two words compared with the US - Europe"...

Regardless of the family's beliefs and expectations, even though they both go to school, they have to teach more to earn money while studying abroad in a foreign country; but two brothers, Nguyen Van Huyen and Nguyen Van Huong, both honored and paid homage to the ancestors. Nguyen Van Huyen obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Literature in 1929, a Bachelor of Laws in 1931 and 1934, becoming the first foreigner at Sorbonne University to be awarded a Doctor of Science degree, with the famous main thesis: "Singing". young men and women in Annam", and a sub-thesis: "Introduction to the study of stilt houses in Southeast Asia".

Teaching profession - a job to help people

French education in the 30s of the twentieth century recorded prominent Vietnamese intellectuals such as Nguyen Van Huyen, Nguyen Manh Tuong, Hoang Xuan Han... After reaching the peak of his education, Nguyen Van Huyen and Nguyen Manh Tuong returned to Vietnam to teach at Buoi School (the official name in French is Lycée du Protectorat - Protector High School).

In his scientific life, Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen has dedicated himself to researching Vietnamese history and culture and has dozens of famous research works on folklore, traditional festivals, and national architecture. , geography, history, rural social class structure...

In 1938, he completed the book "Hoi Phu Dong" in French, published in Hanoi. This book, in the first decade of the 21st century, is still the basic document for Vietnamese authorities to research and make a dossier of request and to be recognized by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage. gender. In 1944, Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen published a valuable research work "Vietnamese civilization"; which affirms that the culture and civilization of the Vietnamese nation has a long tradition...

Mr. Nguyen Van Huyen and his wife - Mrs. Vi Kim Ngoc

As early as 1944, when he gave an interview to Tri Tan newspaper, he affirmed the values ​​and need to preserve the Temple of Literature - Quoc Tu Giam: "In my opinion, there are two ways, one is to repair the Temple of Literature to make it appear beauty, of course should be from an Asian perspective, renovating the writers of the Temple of Literature to make it a library for the whole country, collecting all the books in Confucian, Quoc Ngu and foreign languages ​​about Asia. The second way is to make the Temple of Literature as it was in the past into a lecture hall, for the old and new students to trust enough to go there and lecture on the sages and ancestors in the Temple of Literature because I think many people don't know what the Temple of Literature is and who they worship"...

As a patriotic intellectual, since 1938, Mr. Nghe Nguyen Van Huyen has joined the Association for the propagation of Quoc Ngu; once signed the telegram asking King Bao Dai to abdicate, handing over the leadership of the country to the Viet Minh... After the August Revolution was successful, Mr. Nghe Nguyen Van Huyen was trusted by Uncle Ho and the nation and became a leader. Minister of Education for 29 consecutive years. In this position, he has made many contributions to the cause of growing people and developing Vietnamese culture. Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen was awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities by the State. His name is given to several schools and a street runs through the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology (in Hanoi), where his son Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Huy served as Director.

For nearly 30 years as Minister of Education, Dr. Nguyen Van Huyen has made many contributions to the revival of education and culture of the country. He is a shining example of revolutionary ethics, need, thrift, integrity, righteousness, justice, impartiality...

Prof. Nguyen Lan Dung, the son-in-law of "Mr. Nghe" Nguyen Van Huyen recounted a memory: As a son-in-law who lives with his family, I understand him very well. All his life he lived a very pure life. Only after he died did his family know that he had an entire "asset warehouse" at the ministry's side. It's a drawer for gifts after going abroad on business trips from your side, sometimes the camera, sometimes the tape recorder... All tools are kept at the ministry office. He thinks that this is a gift given to the Minister, not to him personally. He used these gifts to give back to localities or to poor teachers. Not only gifts in kind, but also royalties for reading books, allowances for National Assembly deputies, he also left them as gifts...

With the arrival of the new year spring, reviewing the life and career of "Mr. Nghe" Nguyen Van Huyen, we understand and admire the example of a typical intellectual in the Ho Chi Minh era.