Requesting unified exercises for senior high school students from 2008 to 2009 in Chaoyang District, Beijing (2) (Chinese)

Reference translation:

The content of the letter is very sincere and sincere. It expresses sympathy for my aging and regrets that my studies have not been passed down to others. This is a very deep feeling. But if you want me to follow the practices of some gentlemen in the past, recruit disciples, build a reputation, and show off to the world, I am unwilling to do so. For example, in the Western Han Dynasty, when Confucian teachers taught classics, they often had more than a thousand students. Among them, those with high status could be the Three Officials and Nine Ministers, and those with lower status could also be doctors. If the students they taught became famous all over the world, could it not be called an honor? ? But Ban Gu commented: "This is really the result of people taking the road of becoming an official to seek profit." Therefore, even Confucius's disciples still have to learn how to be an official. Confucius said: "It is not easy to find people who have studied for three years and do not seek official positions." What about today's world?

It is clear that those who pursue precious things in today’s world do not need to rely on classics. What he has learned all year round is nothing more than the essays required for examinations. If he is asked about the text of a classic and still has no idea where it comes from, he has really lost even this superficial memorization of the Tie Kuo studies of the Tang Dynasty. This kind of culture without any intention to study has been going on for more than one generation. What's more, the system of donating money to officials is popular, and those who are illiterate can also become instructors in prefectures and counties! There are only scholars who are too poor to change their careers, and there are one or two among a hundred people. But they are all people who study and are eager to achieve success. They hope to become famous quickly and become famous in the world. They are not willing to learn the Five Classics when asked to do so. He read the quotations of Chen Baisha and Wang Yangming, but he was very happy because it was easy to steal these things. Some of them are slightly talented people who like to write poems, and today's poems can be made without learning. I have traveled all over the world and seen printed volumes of poems and quotations. They are piled up everywhere. It is like a deafening noise. I asked them about "Zhou Nan", "Zhao Nan", "Ya" and "Song". The essence cannot be expressed. In such an era, if you want to implement my advice, who is willing to listen? "A skilled carpenter is unwilling to change or give up his rules for a poor carpenter, and Hou Yi is unwilling to change his bow-drawing standards for a poor archer." If you succumb to the favor of the world and belittle what you have learned in order to attract people from the world, To promote my own reputation is to distort the truth to follow others, and then I am not in the mood to spend so much idle time. However, if scholarship exists in the world, there will definitely be opportunities to develop it, and the ancient gentlemen taught people to learn from the sages they admired selfishly, as if they were in the same room even if they were separated by hundreds of generations. I have written more than 30 volumes of "Rizhilu", and my life's thoughts and studies are all in this book. I only need to copy a few more copies to give to comrades. Maybe they will not be afraid that this book will hinder them. Once someone who uplifts the world emerges and can choose something from my book, this will be enough to fulfill my small wish.

The decline and prosperity of academia are inevitable in their own times. If you do not seek fame for your own pursuits, then there is nothing you cannot encourage yourself. It is for the above reasons that I stubbornly insist on being different from the gentlemen of today. Do you have any advice?