123 years ago today, on August 11, 1902 (July 8, 1902, the first professional art school in China was established. On August 11, 1902, Nanjing Liangjiang Premium Normal School was established. The school is located in Nanjing Beiji. It was the first school in China to open the subject of graphic handicrafts. Nowadays, normal education is divided into two levels: excellent level and junior level. Excellent normal schools are higher normal schools, and the teachers trained are teachers above middle school. This Liangjiang Normal University is a separate excellent normal school with a large scale and a maximum of six to seven hundred students. Painting, handicrafts and later music classes have been offered since their establishment. The ability of the painting and handicrafts subject has been officially established as the main subject, which cannot but be attributed to Li Ruiqing, the supervisor at that time. Li served as assistant minister of the academic department in the late Qing Dynasty. In his later years, he was particularly good at calligraphy and painting, and had a broad vision for art education. It is said that he "consulted professors from various countries in the school, collected examples of normal art education in eastern and western countries,""exhausted the reasons why it is urgent to add a painting and handicraft subject," submitted a petition to the then academic department, requesting the establishment of a fine arts normal college,"the subject is mainly painting and handicraft, music is a subsidiary subject, and it is only described by pictures," namely,"Western painting (pencil, charcoal, watercolor, oil painting), China painting (landscape, flowers), instrument painting (plane, three-dimensional), pattern painting, etc.". Li Ruiqing, Supervisor of Liangjiang Excellent Normal School, Li Jian's Graduation Certificate, Teaching Room Photo Comments: The earliest normal school in modern times was the predecessor of the Education Department of Southeast University and cultivated a large number of talents.