Graduation message from Hu Shi of Peking University

Three messages from Hu Shi to graduates:

China College 18 Grade Graduation Speech.

Hu Shi

Graduate: You are leaving your alma mater now. I have nothing to give you but a word.

This sentence is: "Don't give up learning." Maybe a large part of my previous homework was done for this diploma. From now on, you can study freely according to your own wishes. While in the prime of life, strive to do a specialized knowledge. Teenagers are gone forever, and when their energy fails, it is too late to learn again. Just for the sake of food, learning will never disappoint people. Eat without studying. After three to five years, you will all be eliminated by backward teenagers. I'm afraid it will be too late to do some more study to remedy it.

Some people say: "After going out to work, life problems need to be solved urgently. How can we have time to study?" ? Even if you want to learn, how can you learn without a library and a laboratory? "

I want to say to you: those who wait until there is a library will not study.

Anyone who can't do research until there is a laboratory will stop doing research when there is a laboratory. When you make up your mind to study a problem, you will naturally go on a diet and buy books, and you will naturally try to set up instruments.

As for time, it is not a problem. Darwin has been ill all his life, so he can't do more work. He can only work at one o'clock every day. Look at his grades! Spend one o'clock every day reading ten pages of useful books, and you can read more than 3600 pages every year; 30 years of reading 1 1 ten thousand pages.

Gentlemen, 1 1 ten thousand pages of books can make you a scholar. However, you spend an hour reading three tabloids every day; Four rounds of mahjong will take you half an hour. Reading tabloids? Or playing mahjong? Or try to be a scholar? It's your choice!

Ibsen said, "Your greatest responsibility is to cast your materials into utensils."

Learning is a casting tool. To give up learning is to destroy yourself.

Farewell! Your alma mater will see what you will be like in ten years.

65438+June 25th, 2008

How can I not be confused?

-farewell message to 193 1 graduates of philosophy department of Peking University.

Hu Shi

In a university, the philosophy department should be the least fashionable department with the least number of students. But there have always been many students in the philosophy department of Peking University, which is something I am often surprised by. I often wonder what so many students should do after graduation. What can you do?

Now you are all going to graduate. Naturally, you are also thinking, "What should we do? What can we do? "

In my humble opinion, the purpose of philosophy department should not ask you to read philosophy books, nor should it teach you to accept a certain school of philosophy. A Zen monk once said, "Buddhism came to the East only to seek a person who is not confused." I want to borrow this sentence: "The purpose of philosophy professor is only to cultivate a few people who are not confused."

What should you do? You should try to be a person who is not confused.

Can you be a person who is not confused? This is all by our own efforts. If you are not very confident, I have a small magic weapon for you as a self-defense tool. There are only four words in this magic weapon: "Show me the evidence!"

Here is another trick, pretending to be the use of this little magic weapon: "There is no evidence, only hanging; Insufficient evidence can only be assumed and cannot be arbitrary; It must be confirmed before it can be counted as a conclusion. "

You must be able to avoid being deceived by others before you can hope to guide others not to be tempted.

Friends, take care!

(Hu Shi was then Dean of Peking University College of Humanities)

Give it to this year's college graduates.

Hu Shi

At the end of June two years ago, I published an article in Independent Review (No.7) entitled "Gifts for this year's college graduates". In that article, I said that I prescribed three self-defense prescriptions for those college graduates according to my personal experience:

In the learning environment, there are not one or two difficult problems worth answering in my mind, so it is difficult to maintain the enthusiasm of pursuing knowledge in my student days.

The second prescription is: "Be sure to cultivate more amateur interests." The job a graduate finds may not be suitable for his major; Or what he learned, but not what he really liked. The best remedy is to develop his legitimate interests and activities outside his major.

The third prescription is: "You must have a little confidence." We should believe that today's national failure is due to past efforts; Our efforts today will surely yield great results in the future. Grain by grain, Man Cang will have a house full of harvest. I don't have to succeed, but my skills will not be in vain.

This is what I said to college students two years ago. It's time to graduate from college this year. Two days ago, I attended the graduation ceremonies of two universities in Beiping, and I just want to say these three words: find problems, cultivate amateur interests, and have confidence.

However, I remember two years ago, after I published that article, a college graduate wrote and said, "Mr. Hu, you are wrong." After graduation, we were unemployed! What research can we talk about if we can't solve the problem of eating? How can you talk about amateurs if you can't find a job? After studying for more than ten years, I still can't paste my mouth in the end. How can I have confidence? So all three of your prescriptions are useless! "

For such a disappointed graduate, I would like to contribute the fourth prescription: "You must reflect on yourself first: don't blame others, let alone society." You have to think about it: why is the same diploma invalid for others to take the exam? Or is it just because others have access and assistance and you don't? Or is it because others have learned skills and you haven't? Why are they all called "universities"? Why is his school diploma valuable and your alma mater's diploma worthless? Or is it just because society only asks the name but not the truth? Or is it because your school is unqualified? Or is it because the reputation of your alma mater was ruined by you and your classmates, so the society hates and despises your school? -It cannot be said that today's social undertakings in China are gradually on the right track, and the employment of public and private institutions is gradually becoming stricter. Schools with too loose homework, too wide management, poor teachers and bad study style will never get a good position in society, even if they send out 100 graduates every year. Once in a while, it won't last. On the other hand, those universities that can train students well, especially the graduates from Tsinghua and Nankai University, rarely find good jobs. I know that a month or two ago, people from several big banks came to the north to look for graduates from the economics department. The day before yesterday in Tsinghua, I heard that more than 40 engineering graduates in Tsinghua have been pre-employed by various industries this year. At present, the organizers of many domestic institutions are really willing to pay attention to the selection of talents in colleges and universities. Two or three years ago, Mr. Tao from the Institute of Social Studies said to me, "The graduates of Peking University's economics department in recent years are far less than those of Tsinghua, so none of our graduates of Peking University's economics department have been used in the past two years." I happened to borrow two magazines on the train and read a study that caught my attention. Later, it happened that the author of that article was an economics student who had not graduated from Peking University. I asked him to send some of his research results to Mr Tao Meng He. Mr. Tao is very happy. Ask him to talk about it. Later, after graduation, the student worked in the social investigation institute, and finally recovered some lost credit for Mr. Tao's alma mater. This incident should make us understand that strict employment standards have gradually emerged in society; In the academic institutions hosted by the old teachers of Peking University, if there are no reliable results, the old signboard of Peking University will not help anyone find a job. At the Academia Sinica, chaired by Mr. Cai Yuanpei, I saw last year that Mr. Fu Sinian hired a high flyers who was about to graduate from the Chinese Department of Peking University a few months before the summer vacation. A few months before this summer vacation, I saw him competing with Tsinghua University for a high flyers who is about to graduate from the history department of Tsinghua. All these things should make us understand that today's China society can no longer deceive people with a college diploma. People who have a diploma and can't find a job should reflect on themselves: what society needs is talent, skills and knowledge, and am I a talent after all? In the past, picking easy classes at school, supporting perfunctory teachers, knocking down strict teachers, skipping classes, cheating, and various evasive and tricky means have all lost their effects. Under this new strict employment standard, the diploma obtained by lazy tricks is just a piece of waste paper. Even if you can find a job for a while and get it for a few hours, it will be unreliable after all, and will eventually be squeezed out by outstanding talents. Breaking the "iron rice bowl" is not the strength of my father and brother, nor the recommendation of a rich principal, nor the reference of a class reunion, but the real study and exercise. Being able to do this is introspection. Only if you can reflect on yourself in this way can you hope to save yourself.

How can unemployed people save themselves after graduation? There is no other way but to redouble our efforts and learn more reliable skills by ourselves. Young people in their twenties can make progress as long as they can work hard. This society is most in need of talents. A little effort will often be rewarded ten times and a hundred times, and a score will often get 10% false voice. The returns and benefits in society only far exceed what we deserve, and we can't be recognized by society without real efforts. People who don't have job opportunities can only hope to get a job if they train themselves extra hard, while those who have job opportunities feel that the treatment is too poor and their status is low, and only extra efforts can improve their status by grades. Only responsibility is the only way, because only your own efforts are the most reliable.

Message from Peking University President Jiang Menglin to Peking University Graduates in 1930s;

You have left school. I'm afraid it's more difficult to gain a foothold in society than to study in school. If you are not determined to struggle, your previous education will be enough to increase the misery of your life, or turn it into a tool of depravity. This is what you should pay special attention to. The success of a career requires long-term efforts-the price of success, and there are many thorny roads to find the road to prosperity. Ambition is to cut thorns and axes, and struggle is labor. Never expect to achieve the greatest success with the least labor.

Jiang Menglin is an early student of President Cai Yuanpei. Later, he went to the United States to study and obtained a doctorate in education from Columbia University. His tutor is Dewey. After returning to China, he served as the general manager of Peking University for a long time and often handled administrative affairs on his behalf. He is Cai Yuanpei's right-hand man in running a school. Fu Sinian once commented: "Jiang Menglin's personality charm is not as good as Cai Yuanpei's and his knowledge is not as good as Hu Shizhi's, but he is also smarter than Mr. Cai and Mr. Hu." Jiang Menglin also added a joke: "So they are heroes of Peking University, and we are just kung fu dogs of Peking University."