Why study?

Once upon a time, a great philosopher (Song Zhenzong - Editor) wrote an article "The Joy of Reading". Speaking of the benefits of reading, he said: "There are thousands of millimeters in books, and there are thousands of grains in books." There is a house of gold, and there is a beauty like jade in the book. "This means that if you study, you can become a high official, get a good salary, you will not have to live in a thatched house, and you can marry a young and beautiful wife. You all laughed after hearing this, which shows that you are not very satisfied with what this philosopher said. Now I will talk about other reasons why you should read.

? There are three points that can be said: first, because books are a record of knowledge, knowledge and experience that we have known in the past, we read to accept this human heritage; second, we read for the sake of reading, and after reading books, we can learn more Reading; third, reading can help us solve difficulties, cope with the environment, and obtain sources of ideological materials. As soon as I stepped into the door of the YMCA, I saw many slogans about reading. You probably already know why you read these slogans after reading these slogans. Now I will explain the above three points in more detail.

First, because books represent the inheritance of knowledge passed down to us by the ancestors of mankind. We accept this inheritance and use it as a basis to continue to carry it forward. On this basis, we can build a deeper knowledge. Greater knowledge. The reason why humans are different from other animals is that humans have language and writing, and can pass knowledge to others and to future generations. Coupled with the invention of printing, many books and newspapers were printed. Human brains are very big. Unlike monkeys, humans can create language. Later, they went a step further and developed writing and can carve wood characters. Therefore, humans' greatest contribution is to accumulate past knowledge and experience, so that future generations can save a lot of brainpower. . When African savages encountered a deer in the mountains, they drew a picture of a person and a deer as a message, telling those behind them not to chase them. But what is the use of bequeathing knowledge and experience to your children and grandchildren? This is useful because it is a good lesson from the past. Various textbooks in schools now, such as physics, chemistry, history, etc., are compiled based on the knowledge advanced over thousands of years. A subject can be taught in one, two, or three years. From elementary school, middle school, to college graduation, the education received in these sixteen years represents the knowledge, knowledge and experience gained by our ancestors over thousands of years. The so-called evolution means that people save labor. Although bees can build nests and make inventions, only this bit of knowledge has been passed down. They have not continued to reform and improve to cope with the environment, and no further work has been done. As for people, if they fail to achieve their goals, they will continue to seek progress and use the knowledge, knowledge and experience of previous people as a reference. Wouldn't it be too troublesome if everyone had to learn everything from scratch without using past knowledge? Therefore, with this inheritance of knowledge, people can start a family and start a business, shorten their work, and have more energy to do other things.

The second point is a little more complicated, which is reading for the sake of reading, and reading for the knowledge of the past. Yes, knowledge can be obtained from books, but reading is not that easy. If you don’t read, you can’t read. You must be able to read to read more. Just like wearing glasses, small things can be magnified, blurred things can be seen clearly, and distant things can be made closer, so you need to wear glasses when reading. If you don't study, you can't get in with knowledge. If you don't study, you can't get in with knowledge. Zeng Zigu said: "The classics are not enough to understand the classics." Therefore, he read everything in the "Compendium of Materia Medica", the Nei Jing, and novels, so that he could understand the classics better. The so-called "read after knowing what is known", reading is nothing more than expansion Just knowledge. When I was twelve years old, I could understand all kinds of novels. But thirty years later, when I look back, I still don’t understand many of them. When it comes to the Book of Songs, I used to think it was about love between men and women, and things like King Wen and his concubine. I used to wear a pair of black glasses to read it, but now that I have put on a new pair of glasses, I feel it is completely different. Now I know that the Book of Songs is closely related to folk songs. The study of folk songs has made great progress recently. There is a folk song weekly and a folk song series in Peking, which collects a wide range of folk songs from various places. If we can study the ballad articles, sociology, and anthropology, we can know that the environment and life in the childish age are very interesting. For example, there is a passage in the Book of Songs that says: "When the white grass is wrapped around it, a girl will be pregnant, and good luck will lure her." .

There is a novel in my study called "The Marriage of Awakening the World". It was written by Xizhou Sheng. Naturally, he used a fake name. It was produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is printed and kept at home. for six years. This novel talks about marriage problems. The content is as follows: There was a good wife, but for some reason, she suddenly turned bad. The author did not mention the solution, nor did he think of divorce. He only said that she had committed sins in the previous life because the man had abused her in the previous life. Women, women are reincarnated in a different form, and the oppressor becomes the oppressed. I seem to have seen this kind of story somewhere about committing sins in the past life, falling in love at first, and then suddenly changing. Later, I saw a similar note in the book "Liao Zhai", which also talked about how a woman fell in love at first. How her husband later turned into a vicious wife made her think that this novel was probably written by Pu Liuxian or a friend of Pu Liuxian. Last year I saw a magazine that also said it was done by Pu Liuxian, but there was no evidence. This year I was in Peking and found the evidence. This incident can explain the second point I just said, which is that reading is for the sake of reading. It can also explain the third point, which is that reading can provide a source of ideas. If you have no idea at the beginning, you will be at a loss when encountering difficulties. Therefore, reading can solve problems, including military, political, financial, ideological and other problems. This is the use of reading. I have a friend who once read a novel next to a foreign lamp. The foreign lamp was filled with oil, but it did not light up because the wick was short. Then he thought of a story in "Aesop's Fables", which said that a crow wanted to drink water from a bottle. Because the bottle was too small, it couldn't get the water, so it took a stone and threw it into the bottle, and the water came up. This friend knew chemistry. He was afraid that the lamp would not light up if he added water to it, so he put in a copper dollar and the oil touched the wick of the lamp. This is what reading "Aesop's Fables" and the novel helped him. Studying is like using troops. Raise troops so that they can be used. Otherwise, even if there are 100,000 or 200,000 soldiers, they will be useless, and sometimes they will mutiny.

As for "what books to read", next time Mr. Chen Zhongfan will give a lecture, I will also talk about it incidentally today. I read books for thirty-five years from the age of five to the age of forty. I have also thought about how many books I should read. It can be said that there are only two or three books that are organized and systematic among them. As for carefully structured works, there are probably only half a dozen in the past 2,500 years. For example, in Laozi's book, one sentence today is "the Tao can be Tao", and the next day it is "the Tao is very Tao". There is no system. Ji is a grocery store, and Shi Hezi is still a grocery store. As for the Book of Songs, the Book of Rites, and the Book of Changes, there is only a little form. When it comes to content, it can be said that there is nothing that can help us improve our morals and increase our knowledge. Chinese books are not fun to read, so we need to find another way to create colonies. Reading should be enjoyable but not painful. If you can do this, there will be endless possibilities in the book. I hope you will not be afraid of reading. You will indeed need to consult a dictionary at first, but if you can work hard for a year and analyze the contents of the books you read clearly every sentence, and continue to do this, then you will definitely be able to open up new fields in one or two years. A paradise, but I am afraid that my desire for knowledge is too great and I will not have time to read it. I am finally a big brother, and today I will give you some parting advice based on my experience studying in the past thirty-five years.

Hu Shi, Chinese writer and thinker.