华蘅芳(1833—1902年)字若汀,江苏无锡人,出身于官僚地主家庭,其父华翼纶曾作过江西永新知县。华蘅芳的青少年时代,正是中国经历了两次鸡片战争,被迫签订了一系列不平等条约,一步一步地沦为半殖民地半封建社会的时代。那时,西方资本主义的一些先进科学技术已开始传入中国。尽管那些固步自封、盲目虚骄的顽固派官僚和士大夫,把西方先进的科学技术斥之为“奇技淫巧”而大加排斥,但也有不少先进 Hua Tuo Fang (1833-1902) Zi Ruoting, Wuxi, Jiangsu, was born in a bureaucratic landlord family, his father Hua wing had made Jiangxi Yongxin magistrate. Huafang’s adolescent age is precisely because China experienced two chicken war, was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties, step by step into a semi-colonial semi-feudal society era. At that time, some advanced science and technology of Western capitalism began to be introduced to China. Although those diehard bureaucrats and scholar-officials who are complacent and blind-knit arrogantly reject the advanced science and technology in the West as “miraculous tricks,” they are still quite advanced